Source: The Conversation – Africa
Emmanuel Ikwuegbu/Unsplash, CC BY The West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) is a high-stakes test. For decades, it has served as the gateway to post-secondary education across five countries: Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia.
But is it fair? David Baidoo-Anu and Monsurat Raji say their research shows that cultural bias in exam questions can put students at a disadvantage. This happens through language, contexts and examples. It raises questions about what counts as “ability” in standardised testing.
Why do students in the five countries write the same exam? The exam is administered by the West African Examinations Council. This was established in 1952 during the colonial era to oversee standardised examinations across British West Africa.
The original aim was to coordinate administration across the region. Universities and employers would be able to interpret and compare qualifications consistently. For their part, students could follow opportunities across borders. Although the examination system has changed over time, it still has a regional structure.
It remains deeply tied to university admissions, employment screening and cross-border recognition of qualifications. Why is this a problem? The problem is not simply that students across five countries write a similar exam. The deeper concern is that some questions are not culturally responsive.
That is, they do not always reflect students’ language backgrounds, cultural references or everyday experiences. Students are not all familiar with particular examples. Exam questions use language, names, places, stories, images, objects and examples to help students understand what is being asked.
These are important features of a quality and equitable assessment. When those features are unfamiliar to a student, a question may become harder to understand. It’s not that students lack ability, but the context of the question does not reflect their experiences.
Our research argues that assessment systems must pay closer attention to this. The language, examples, images and scenarios used in exam questions should be meaningful, fair and responsive to learners’ realities. Guided by a framework for test design that takes cultural experience into account, we analysed available mathematics, English language and science exam questions from 2019 to 2021 in Ghana and Nigeria.
We looked at how the language, contexts, names, images, examples and representations used in test items reflected learners’ societies and cultures. The analysis included characters, places, situations, events and stories used in questions. What are the differences that matter?
Students don’t interpret questions in a vacuum. They make sense of assessment tasks through their own lived experiences, languages, cultural knowledge and ways of knowing. Our analysis of the exam questions revealed several concerns.
Some questions assumed familiarity with cultural references, examples and experiences that may not be shared by all across the region. One major finding was that many exam contexts and character names reflected mostly western experiences and identities, rather than African ones.
Some English language questions, for example, used unfamiliar western names, settings and literary contexts. The study also found that some mathematics and science questions relied heavily on complex technical language. There was not enough visual support.
This could be a problem for students who may understand the content, but struggle with interpreting the language used. In several instances, the questions referenced objects, situations, or experiences that may not have been familiar or culturally relevant to African learners, potentially affecting their interpretation and responses.
Another key finding was that images, diagrams and abstract representations were sometimes used without adequate explanations. In some cases, there were no visuals that could have improved students’ understanding of questions. In other cases diagrams lacked sufficient contextual explanation.
Why is the exam so important? Exam results determine access to universities, scholarships, jobs and future social mobility. In Ghana, for example, students who don’t get the required grades can’t go on to postsecondary education.
Some spend years rewriting the exam. Institutions like the Ghana Immigration Service, Ghana Police Service and Ghana Armed Forces require job applicants to pass core subjects such as English and mathematics. The exam is not only a school-leaving certificate, it is also a gateway to formal employment and national service careers.
Reports from Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics indicate that the performance of candidates in the exam is generally poor. In 2020 only 36.4% of North-East candidates passed. In 2019, only 47.4% of North-West candidates passed. The high-stakes nature of examinations has consequences for teaching and learning too.
Teachers feel pressured to teach primarily for exam performance rather than for deep understanding or meaningful learning. Examinations that aren’t socioculturally responsive can make existing inequalities even more pronounced. What solution do you propose?
We don’t argue that west Africa should abandon regional exams or standardised assessments altogether. Rather, we argue that assessment systems should become more responsive to the students’ societies and cultures. They need to be more equitable.
Equitable examination isn’t simply about giving every student exactly the same examination. It should give all students fair opportunities to understand what’s expected of them and to demonstrate what they know. We propose that examination developers pay greater attention to students’ languages, lived experiences, cultural contexts and ways of making meaning.
Practically, this means: using clearer and more accessible language in questions including visuals and representations using culturally relevant and locally meaningful examples reviewing examination items for cultural bias involving educators, students, linguists and local communities from different regions in the design and review of assessment items.
This approach does not weaken standards. Rather, it strengthens the validity and fairness of assessment. It would measure students’ actual knowledge and abilities rather than their familiarity with dominant cultural norms or linguistic conventions. We also propose that examination bodies involve communities throughout the process of developing tests.
How does your solution address differences between countries in the region? This approach keeps the regional examination system but is more sensitive to national and local realities. The participating countries share some educational histories, but they differ in language use, cultural practices, school resources, rural and urban experiences, and everyday examples familiar to students.
A socioculturally responsive approach would require examination bodies to review whether the language, images, examples and scenarios used in questions are meaningful across these different contexts.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Original source: https://analysis1.mil-osi.com/2026/06/02/cultural-bias-in-west-africas-school-leaver-exam-questions-puts-many-students-at-a-disadvantage/