The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has identified private secondary schools as part of the major problems confronting it.
It identified the operators of ‘rogue’ websites and paucity of funds, particularly since coronavirus pandemic and lockdown in 2020 as another problem.
The Head of the National Office of WAEC Nigeria, Mr Patrick Areghan, gave this remark on Monday in Lagos at a pre-event press briefing ahead of the forthcoming 70th annual council meeting and anniversary slated for Abuja next week.
He said most of the private school operators are always uncooperative in compliance with the exam registration deadlines and this has repeatedly affected the operations of the council.
He also said, oftentimes, some of the private schools indulge in exam malpractice including patronizing various ‘rogue’ websites to dupe unsuspecting candidates.
Explaining this, he said they go about these by charging their students far above the N18, 000 official exam fee now being charged by WAEC per candidate irrespective of subjects’ combination including sciences and then deceive them( students) and their parents that they would use part of the excesses to settle WAEC officials and invigilators so that they would look elsewhere during exams.
He said that was why many of them delay in submitting lists of their candidates on time with many students and their parents also falling into their hands but do regret when they later find out it is all deceit as there is no WAEC official or invigilator anywhere to bribe.
Giving a reference, he said the ongoing registration for this year’s May\June school-based WASSCE which is billed to commence May 16, was extended to March 11, just because of low registration recorded.
He said even as of Monday, only about 1.1 million out of about 2 million candidates expected had so far registered for the examination, noting that such delay would certainly affect the timely preparation for the exam on the part of the council.
He said having knowledge of a number of candidates to sit for exams on time would greatly help the council not only in early and adequate preparation particularly as regards the printing of materials and other sensitive logistics but also at a cheaper price and convenient period.
He said while WAEC would continue to deploy mechanisms to detect and prevent exam malpractice in its various diets, he advised other stakeholders including students, governments and schools as well as parents to join hands in stamping out the practice in Nigeria’s education system.
Areghan who said WAEC has conducted exams and issued certificates to hundreds of millions of candidates in Nigeria alone in the last 70 years of its existence, stressed that the council is coming out bigger and better each year.
He said apart from a lecture on “Assessing the assessor: Looking back and looking forward” to be delivered by Professor Ngozi Osarenren of the University of Lagos and former Education Commissioner for Edo State, various awards including the International Excellence, National Distinction and Merit Awards would be presented to students and schools that performed outstandingly in the 2021 school-based WASSCE across the five-member countries, and in Nigeria respectively.
He added that “The Omo N’ Oba Erediauwa Coronation Awards will also be presented to the winners of the best male and best female candidates while Augustus Bandel Oyediran Trophy Award will go to the school with the best aggregate result in the exam at the event with many stakeholders to be in attendance.
Areghan said Nigeria is hosting the event which is rotational among WAEC’s five-member countries and to be on-site and virtually five years after it did same.
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