- . Northern states consider GCE, Southwestern states in race to meet up with WASSCE
The West African Council Examinations Council (WAEC) has rejected a plea by Nigeria for a shift in the date and timetable for its West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
The Nigeria’s Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, who said this, maintained that students in some states may be forced to sit for the General Certificate Examinations (GCE) holding in November, if their states fail to meet up with this year’s timetable for the WASSCE.
Speaking at the bi -weekly briefing hosted by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID- 19 in Abuja, Nigeria’s administrative capital, Nwajiuba explained that this move become necessary since the “WAEC unfortunately, cannot shift its examinations for any reason at all.”
All governors of the six states in SouthWest Nigeria have declared readiness to reopen schools on August 3 for their pupils to go ahead with the WASSCE examination. Their counterparts in the 19 states from the North have, however, stated that they could not meet up with the date.
The minister, however, noted that should all states in Nigeria not able to meet up with the WAEC timetable, there was already a negotiated timeline to move local language subjects such as Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa as offered in Nigeria, behind from its usually split as first written subjects, to allow all participating countries the needed time to write the general subjects at the same time.
He said; “If you look at what the chairman of the PTF presented in June, he said he is not giving a date for schools resumption. He proposed that in view of WAEC’s time table, it will be advisable for those who can to try and make arrangements to make use of the available facilities and that is what is stated in the guidelines.
“In the guideline, there is a checklist of the requirements to be put in place and we have given a cut off date so we can know who needs help.
“We need to know if the teachers at your own location cannot be provided with mask, if the school is unable to do that we need to know ahead because states that have given date for resumption of schools are setting a time table along the lines we have already explained and they are free to do this.
“Many states have come to say they are unable to meet up with that date.
That is why the minister requested WAEC give us and the schools some time to meet up.
“WAEC unfortunately, is unable to wholesomely move the exams but we have also worked out a negotiated time line with WAEC on what we call peculiar Nigerian subjects which in the language of WAEC are subjects that are only held in Nigeria such as Igbo , Hausa, Yoruba.”
