Olu Adenipekun, head of National Office, WAEC Nigeria, in an interview with KELECHI EWUZIE gives insight into conditions secondary schools must meet before getting accreditation to serve as WAEC centres. Excerpts:
What is your take on the so-called special centres for examination?
I will like to say that there are schools that are recognised by the state government because they have fulfilled all the conditions. Such schools will be presented to WAEC as ready to present students for examination. On our part, WAEC will go to such schools for inspection before they can be recognised by the council.
On the other, we have some schools that are not recognised by the state government and WAEC has nothing to do with such schools. There are some schools that are recognised by the state government, WAEC has inspected the schools, but some of them have not met the standard required of them to be able to present candidates to write WAEC examinations.
In the event that some schools do not meet the requirement, WAEC will draw the attention of such schools to the state government. We direct them on what they should do in the areas of providing security; providing examination hall; to improve in the quality and quantity of teachers that they have.
For the schools that have been recognised by both the state government and WAEC, they are then qualified to present their students as candidates for the examination.
We have no special centre as far as WAEC is concerned. All schools that meet the requirements to be called a centre for WAEC examination, we just go there and conduct our examinations. There is nothing special with such schools.
If you have a school that is not recognised by the state government and not definitely recognised by WAEC, putting up posters to call them special, that is left for them. I am sure there is an arm of the ministry of education that will attend to that. As far as WAEC is concerned, there is nothing like special centre.
What are the requirements for a private school to qualify to present candidate for WAEC
For any school to be recognised by the council to present their students to WAEC as candidates there are lots of requirements they must fulfill.
Such school must have structure, students, and teachers. These three things must be met. Once these three things are met, such school will approach the state government through the state ministry of education who will now take the necessary steps to inspect the school to be sure that they have met all the things they need to meet as far as the physical facilities are concerned.
The ministry must state that they have met all they need to meet as far as teachers requirement are concerned and that they have met the requirement as far as number of students in the school are concern.
When they have completed this, we can be talking about other things like the reagents, the laboratories, the examination halls, the perimeter fencing, the signpost announcing the existence of that school in that location. All these must be provided.
Once these ones are met, the state ministry of education will now approach WAEC to tell the council that the school has been recognised by the state, then subject to the approval of WAEC, they can present students as candidates for WAEC examination in the year of the examination.
It is only when all these are done, that WAEC can go to the school to conduct examinations.
Some schools struggle to meet the stringent requirements while others resort to short-cut. What is WAEC position of this action?
If any school engages in short cut practices, this will only amount to self-deceit. As far as WAEC is concerned, we can decide to come for inspection to school without notice to inspect the laboratories and other equipment. When we come for inspection, we equally interact with students. The aim is to ascertain that the students themselves can identify certain laboratory equipment and be sure that they have actually been using them.
This approach is to make sure that the students are not just being prepared for examination, but to also prepare them as leaders in Nigeria as far as Mathematics and Technical Sciences are concerned.
We are doing all these to ensure that students are better prepared as engineers, scientists, medical doctors of tomorrow by exposing them to laboratory and activities required in such environment.
It is important to note that these inspections are carried out to make sure that students are not just prepared for examination practical alone, but rather to prepare them for tomorrow’s challenges.
