The House of Representatives Committee on Basic Education and Services, the Ministry of Education and the West African Examination Council (WAEC), met in Abuja on Thursday and resolved to meet President Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigerian Governors Forum on the need to fix a date for the 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
According to the Chairman of the Committee, Julius Ihonvbere (APC-Edo), the stakeholders agreed that in the interest of the 1.6 million candidates that registered for the WASSCE, there was a need to agree on a date for the regional examination as time was running out for the country.
The Head of WAEC National Office in Nigeria, Patrick Areghan, told the committee that it would take time to print question papers and that other convoluted logistic considerations might come into play.
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He explained that Ghana had wanted to have the examination in June because it is an election year but had to shelve its plan because of Nigeria. He added that it took a presidential directive for the Gambia to shelve its desire to have the examination before now.
According to him, Nigeria should decide if it wants to give its candidates what he called a COVID-19 exam certificate or a WAEC certificate in concert with the other countries.
“Getting parents to pay another set of fees might be difficult if the September date is missed. If the November option is considered, someone has to pick the bills,” he said.
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The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono said that WAEC was one of the institutions that espouse regional cooperation and having a standalone examination will defeat the element of unity it portrays.
He further noted that if there was adequate funding, it should not take more than a week to get the examination ready logistically for the 19,000 examination centres across the country.
In his contribution, Rep Nnolim Nnaji wondered why that should be a problem since the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs spent over N13 billion as palliative for the Covid-19 pandemic.
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The Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, reminded the stakeholders that the decision to be made was for examination date and not school resumption.
The members had deliberated on whether or not Nigeria could use its power as the provider of about 60 per cent of funding in WAEC to dictate its preferable date but eventually agreed to be democratic in arriving at a decision.
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