Private school owners fault WAEC digital certificate initiative

Private school owners in Nigeria have condemned the West African Examinations Council‘s (WAEC’s) innovative digital certificate platform which was launched recently by the council to ease the process of verifying, sharing, and printing its results.

Some of the school owners told BusinessDay that the new initiative does not protect the interest of some of the stakeholders in the secondary school sector, among which are the private school owners.

Caroline Orji, the head of administration at Rona Kings and Queens Schools decried the fact that WAEC launched the platform without even consulting the private school owners at least giving them a sense of belonging as major stakeholders in the industry.

Orji held that for WAEC to launch the platform without considering the negative effects the innovation poses to private school management is a demonstration of insensitivity to private school owners and management considering the fact that the schools are exposed to financial losses by this initiative.

“A lot of children owe fees and are still allowed to write the examinations since they are already registered. Schools wait for those who are unable to pay up fees to come for their certificates to recover the money.

“With this development, private schools will lose a lot of money because the candidates won’t bother to come back since they can access their certificates online. This is sad, except WAEC is saying schools should stop debtors from writing the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), she said.

Similarly, a principal from a secondary in Uyo, Akwa Ibom argues that schools should be the custodians of candidates’ WAEC certificates until they are cleared from all indebtedness, hence, she said the initiative will backfire even though it is an innovative idea.

“Definitely this new approach to accessing and verifying WAEC results will affect private school business in Nigeria negatively because some students will cash on the initiative to swindle schools since schools can no longer control how and when students get their results,” she said.

Besides, she reiterated that many school owners and management might be forced to embrace other examination bodies such as the National Examinations Council (NECO) to register their candidates rather than WAEC.

Read also: What to know about WAEC’s digital certificate platform

However, for Benson Salami-Olayanju a school owner based in Ibadan in Oyo State, the WAEC digital certificate platform is a welcome development.

“I have an approved WAEC in the centre of my school. Though we have not seen it, we are looking at the situation. The innovations from WAEC so far are encouraging. The man at the helm of affairs at the council is really doing everything to discourage exploitations and fraudulent acts.

“He is making life easier for students and parents through this initiative. In advanced countries most academic institutions run on an open policy system, students can access their certificates without necessarily falling to the schools where they registered for the examinations.

“Some private schools in Nigeria take advantage of students and parents thereby exploiting them by collecting more than is officially approved. With this app, the council has eliminated fraud and exploitation. I admire what the man is doing,” he said.

Recall that WAEC officially launched its digital certificate platform in Nigeria on Thursday, October 20, 2022 at Ikeja-Lagos.

Patrick Areghan, the head of the national office at WAEC, Nigeria had at the vent disclosed that the council is committed to its mission of encouraging academic and moral excellence, promoting sustainable human resource development and international cooperation which is foundational to birthing the digital platform.

He disclosed that with the advent of technology, there is a need to integrate technology with students’ lifestyles.

“Today, we live in a digital world where instant satisfaction and accessibility are the ultimate. The process of receiving, retrieving, sharing, verifying, or confirming academic certificates is rather cumbersome and moribund. The whole process is costly and could be frustrating, and the only answer can be found in digital certificates!

“We are evolving to meet the demands of a changing world. We have migrated from physical registration of candidates to online registration; online verification of results and online result printouts, etc,” he stated.