As the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), for Secondary School scheduled to commence from May 16 to June 23, 2022, there are strong indication that public schools in Sokoto and Zamfara states did not officially presented candidates for the examinations.
Head of the National Office of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) in Nigeria, Mr. Patrick Areghan, disclosed this on Monday while briefing journalists on the Council’s preparedness for the conduct of the examination in the country.
According to the WAEC boss, only private schools in the two mentioned states registered their candidates for the examination, stressing that the reason why candidates from public schools were not registered for the examinations were not provided by the affected states.
Areghan particularly frowned at late registration of candidates by private schools, stressing that such act is totally unacceptable to the Council as it can lead to delays in preparations for the examination.
He further said; “Over 1.6million candidates from 20,221 schools have registered for the examination out of which 800,055 (49.76%) are males, while 800,724 representing 50.24% are females.
“The candidates would be examined in 76 subjects, made up of 197 papers while about 30,000 practicing senior teachers nominated by various Ministries of Education, would be participating in the examination as supervisors,” the WAEC boss said.
Areghan also said that even though the National Identification Number (NIN) was made part of the component of the registration process, it was however not made a compulsory requirement in order to avoid disqualifying candidates, stressing that no candidate was denied registration as a result of non-submission of the NIN.
Areghan further said; “WAEC frowns at examination malpractice of any kind. Penalties for involvement in any form of examination malpractice would be meted out to erring candidates, supervisors, schools, etc, as would be approved by the Nigeria Examinations Committee (NEC), which is the highest decision-making organ of the Council that sits on examination matters in Nigeria”.
He therefore called on parents and guardians to admonish their wards to study hard and desist from any form of examination malpractice just as he warned supervisors to desist from aiding and abetting examination malpractice by assisting candidates, especially by allowing them to enter the Examination Hall with cell phones to make use of same.
