The Ministry of Education has said that she will see to it that candidates who missed the 2021 West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) in the South East, will be given another opportunity to write the examination.
The Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Mr Sonny Echono, revealed this while monitoring some examination centres in Abuja on Monday. He frowned at the Sept. 13 disruption of examination centres in the South East.
Echono, however, said that he was not satisfied with the conduct of the examination across the country which was written by over 1.57 million candidates.
Speaking, Echono said the ministry will put modalities in place to ensure that the candidates who missed the examination in the South East are given other opportunities to write the examination.
“We are very pleased that all around the country; examinations are going on peacefully as we have a total of over 19,000 exams centres across the country with over 1.57million registered candidates.
“Besides the disruptions we had on Sept.13 in the South East where some candidates were stopped from doing the exams, it is a peaceful examination.
“We are complying with all the standards and ethics of examinations, we are pursuing very hard more cases, incidence or possibilities of examinations malpractice because we have a zero tolerance for examinations malpractice.
“We shall punish any person found culpable and ensure that sanity is restored in our system,’’ he said.
Echono said that the ministry did not encounter challenges in preparing students for the examinations aside from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“All COVID-19 safety protocols are being strictly adhered to in centres across the country,” he said.
The perm. Sec. said although some schools were closed in states due to COVID-19 pandemic, alternative arrangements were made especially for exit classes to take the examination.
Echono said that cases of examination malpractices were usually collated at the end of the examination, pointing out that the culprits would also be brought to book. He said that the ministry was collaborating with relevant examination bodies and Non Government Organisations to fish out candidates involved in examination malpractices.
“This is because we have a lot of miscreant who are perpetrating and deceiving people. We are going to undertake a general overhaul for all those offering so called services to candidates.
“We didn’t see much of malpractices in internal examinations like this because these are students who are already in school,” he said.
Echono led the monitoring team to the Federal Government Girls College (FGGC) Bwari and Government Girls Secondary School, Dutse. From observations, the students of the GGSS, Dutse, were in full compliance with COVID-19 protocols.
