Students sitting the 2016 West African Senior School Certificate Examination should pay close attention, this piece was prepared just for you.
The Augustus Bandele Oyediran Award for the Best Candidate in West Africa is a contest among candidates in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Gambia. This award was instituted in 1984 under two broad categories, and they are:
1. The International Excellence/Merit Award
The competition is between candidates from member countries of the examination council, and for a candidate to be eligible for the award, he/she must fulfill these obligations:
- Such candidate MUST have a minimum of eight A1s in the subjects taken. This is in line with the regulation that for the award of a WASSCE certificate, a candidate should register for a minimum of eight subjects. In cases where candidates sit nine subjects, their best eight subjects will be used.
- He/she must go through three selection stages.
- In ranking eligible candidates, their T-scores are used.
- In the event of a tie, the T-scores of the candidates in their common subjects (English and Maths) are used. Where there is still a tie, the raw scores of the candidates in English and Maths are then used. Should a tie persist, the T-scores of the best of the candidates’ remaining core subjects are used.
- Upon this rigorous method of getting the best, the three candidates with the highest scores at stage 2 are adjudged winners.
2. The National Distinction/Merit Award
The competition is restricted to each of the five countries that make up the body – Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Gambia; this means that each country produces each of its own winner. To be eligible, candidates must:
- Go through all three selection stages, having been shown to have a minimum of seven A1s in subjects sat for.
- Their T-scores will also form the basis for their ranking.
- In the event of a tie, the T-scores of the candidates in English and Maths are used. Where there is still a tie, the raw scores of the candidates in English and Maths are used. In the case of a further tie, the T-scores of the best of the candidates’ remaining core subjects are used.
- The three candidates with the highest scores at stage 2 are adjudged winners.
It should be noted that since 2012, Ghanaian students have been in the top three of the International Merit Award category, while Nigerians held sway in the 1980s and 1990s.
Perhaps, this is the year the jinx will be broken, and you may well be the one. So saddle up and make history!
