New Telegraph

COVID-19: WAEC can’t shift its timetable, says Minister

…FG considers GCE in place of WASSCE

The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, has said students in Nigeria may be forced to sit for the General Certificate Examinations (GCE) holding in November, if the country fails to meet up with this year’s timetable for the West African Council Examinations (WACE). Nwajiuba, who made this known at the bi -weekly briefing hosted by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID- 19 yesterday in Abuja, explained that the shift may become necessary since the WAEC unfortunately, cannot shift its examinations for any reason at all.

He however noted that should Nigeria be 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.

In his words: “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.

The Ghanaians will take examinations peculiar to them. “But they are all in the first part of the time table. So, we will work out a domestication module that will take our peculiar subjects behind after we have done generals. This will buy us the time we need for all of us to be at par with the rest of West Africa and operating at the same time because the unanimity with which WAEC has always worked is still very important to us.

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