Alternative maths qualifications for West Africa

I spent a good part of the last year looking at alternatives to WASSCE maths for the following reasons:

1. A lot of “Arts” and “Commercial” students find it extremely hard to pass (this leads to cheating by both students and Universities, who take them on without maths).
2. Unless you are planning to do engineering or a highly scientific subject, WASSCE maths is an overkill.
3. Believe it or not, WASSCE maths is harder than GCSE maths and closer to A-Level maths.
4. To attend a University in the UK, you only need GCSE maths and English.
5. We have decided to disadvantage our students by demanding a higher level than countries with more resources (electricity, Internet access)

In the UK, the government offers and allows alternative maths and English qualifications for those who were unable to pass their GCSE’s maths and English. These qualifications are also used universally in vocational education. These qualifications are:

• On-demand when taken on the computer
• Set-dates when done on paper.

This gives a good level of flexibility as you can quickly take them as soon as you are ready instead of waiting for a year and or November resits.

Presently, there are still a few hurdles to overcome before we can safely say that they would be available in Sierra Leone:

1. Candidates must be computer-literate to be able to do the exams.
2. We are not sure if our Institutions of Higher Learning would accept them. Just to be clear, not all Universities in the UK accept these alternative qualifications.

Please feel free to comment and or add suggestions. Please contact us at Skills Advisors to learn more about this qualification.