• Friday, March 29, 2024
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WAEC set August 3rd as date for 2020 WASSCE

WAEC

Nigerian parents and students can now heave a sign of relief as the management of the African Examinations Council (WAEC),has announced August 3 to September 5 as the commencement date for the conduct of the much-awaited West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination for School Candidates, 2020.

Patrick E. Areghan , head of Nigeria National office of WAEC stated this at a press conference in Lagos Tuesday.

Areghan announced that a total of One Million Five Hundred and Forty Nine Thousand Four Hundred and Sixty Three (1,549, 463) candidates have registered for the diet from 19,129 schools out of which 786,421 are males and 763,042 are females.

The WASSCE examination was earlier scheduled to take place between the 6th of April and.5th of June, 2020, but had to be postponed due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Areghan while briefing Journalists at the WAEC National Office says there is a novel development in this arrangement for this year’s examination in the sense that the examination would be held from Monday through Saturday, in order to be able to achieve the five-week span.

He further noted that the choice of the period (August 3rd to September 5‘”, 2020) for the conduct of the examination was not arbitrarily set, adding that WAEC consulted extensively with the governments of all the five member countries before arriving at the Period a duration of the examination.

According to him, In deference to the Federal Government of Nigeria, the five-week arrangement was arrived at in order to make room for the other Examining Bodies to equally conduct their examinations in good time. The shortening of the period is also of advantage in terms of reducing the period of mass social interaction with its attendant consequences.

The head of Nigeria Office of the West African examination body further stated that the WAEC in conducting the examination have taken due cognizance of the various measures/protocols rolled out by the Federal and State governments of Nigeria, aimed at checking the spread of the pandemic.

“We have encapsulated all these measures in a pamphlet which will be circulated to all stakeholders for their necessary guidance. For the sake of emphasis, schools must provide wash-hand buckets with running water, soaps, hand sanitizers and thermometer hand-gun to check the temperature of all concerned”

“All examination functionaries, including the Council’s staff on distribution; Supervisors; Invigilators, Inspectors; candidates and school officials will be required to wear face masks, wash and sanitize their hands daily and throughout the duration of the examination,” Araghan said.

Commenting further, he opines that during the waiting period, WAEC would continued to fine tune and perfect all arrangements for the smooth and successful conduct of the examination and I am happy to inform you that we are set to conduct the examination in Nigeria.

He assured the general public of the examination body’s commitment to adhere strictly to social/physical distancing in the examination halls by making sure that candidates sit two (2) metres apart.

“This means that many more classrooms will be used and many more supervisors and invigilators will be required to conduct the examination. This has certainly raised the supervision fee to be paid to supervisors,” Araghan said.