This year’s statistics for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) provides evidence that more girls took the exam this year than boys.

This statistics is reminiscent of last year’s when female candidates also dominate male candidate in the West Africa’s premium secondary school examination.

This year, data from the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE) provides evidence that 52.1% of candidates that took the exam were female. This dwarfs the males who make up 47.9% of total candiadates that took the exam.

Education experts are saying that this year’s data is one to celebrate since the overall best candidate is also female.

“In the recent past we have been having more girls taking this exam than the boys but the latter were still performing better than them,” said Elsie Kamara, a secondary school teacher.

This year, Areej Zayid, a science student from Naiahcom High School recorded the highest score after obtaining 6 A1s and 2 B3s. Zayid scored better than the overall male best candidate, Alpha Ibrahim Bah from St. Edward’s Secondary School, who scored similar number of A1s but 2 B2s and a C4.

The best performing school in this year’s examination is Dele-Peddle International School. The Allen Town-based school recorded a 100% pass rate with all 17 candidates that took the exam from the school having university requirement.

Although Naiahcom and Dele-Peddle are testament of the leading role private school continue to play in Sierra Leone’s education landscape, 36 private schools with 10,000 candidates saw their results withheld by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) due arrears owed.

This year’s statistics also revealed, sadly, that a total of 27,097 results were withheld by WAEC.