The Nation Newspaper

Tag: WAEC

  • WAEC adopts biometrics for private candidates

    WAEC adopts biometrics for private candidates

    THE West African Examination Council (WAEC) is using the encrypted biometrics code for private candidates sitting for the Nov/Dec 2014 examination.

    The device, which captures the biometric feature of candidates, is encrypted with a response code that will be on the certificates issued to every candidate to mitigate impersonation and cheating.

    The examination body has also acquired scanners to screen candidates for the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) while also providing hand sanitisers, face masks and gloves for supervisors to protect them against infection.

    The Head of National Office WAEC Nigeria, Charles Eguridu, disclosed these at the weekend in Abuja during inspection tour of some examination centres by the management team.

    He said: “Because of Ebola, we are going around and carrying out sample scanning of people going in to write the exams so that our candidates are not unduly exposed to any danger.

    “We want to assure Nigerians that the West African Examination Council (WAEC) as a responsible body will do what it takes to ensure the safety of our candidates.”

    Eguridu added that the body has introduced what he called the “walk-in candidates”, explaining “by this we are saying that anybody can write WAEC examination even when you did not register during the period of registration.

    “All you need is to walk into our nearest office, pay the prescribe fee and write the exams.

    Chairman of WAEC Nigeria and chief federal government nominee, Bar. Daniel Nwaezioke, said that WAEC has taken proactive steps to ensure the safety of the candidates who are going to write the exams.

    “WEAC has been doing very well in the monitoring of exams. The council is always a step or two ahead of the candidates in terms of cheating and malpractice and I am considering a time when our exams will be malpractice- free. WAEC is working towards that,” he stated.

     

  • Still on 2014 WAEC result

    SIR: The just released 2014 West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination has elicited various comments from various quarters. People have also condemned in unmistakable terms the mass failure which is a clear pointer to our ever increasing falling standard of education.

    While the children are gnashing their teeth because of their poor performance, parents also are counting their losses in terms of wasted school fees, pocket money and what have you.

    The government, the schools and the parents are now trading tackles but the damage has already been done. What next is the way out of the quagmire in which we have found ourselves? We have all been caught in a spider’s web and it is too late to cry when the head is off.

    A critical re-appraisal of the secondary educational system calls for urgent action to be taken by both the state and the federal government if we must have to arrest the present abysmal drift. A system where students are promoted en-masse from one class to another must stop. There must be a standard set by the relevant authority so that only the best is promoted from one class to another. Since a desperate disease requires a desperate remedy, it will not be out of place if Senior Secondary (SS) two students must have to write qualifying examination to SS III. Such a qualifying examination must be set by the state Ministry of Education and only those who score 40% and above including English and Mathematics should be promoted.

    The moral decadence now permeating among the youths and across the length and breadth of the country must be addressed and necessary steps taken to curtail them. This is why the return of schools to their original owners must be quickened at the various levels.

    One thing the West African Examination Council has not come up with is statistics of passes recorded by both the private and the public sectors respectively. The need to know this is important so as to know how to take the bull by the horn. One important contagious disease today which no one has even focused on is the issue of home video. A situation whereby you find parents and children preparing for their West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination glued to the television watching home video until the dead of the night does not help issue.

    The politicization of the WAEC fees paid by the various state governments under the guise of free education does not make the parents to be alive to their responsibility since they do not feel the pinch hence they do not bother to monitor the level of preparation of their wards for the examination.

    Our mass education policy is becoming counter-productive. It is affecting the quality of our present day graduates shunned out by the various universities and this is a direct product of our Senior Secondary Schools.

    I have heard people argue for the re-introduction of the Higher School Certificate system. Fine, if it will be a panacea for the dwindling standard of education at the university level. But what is going to be the parameter or the modus-operandi for the admission to study at Higher School Certificate levels? Special schools should be given approval or designated to run the syllabus for the duration it will last. This is one area our educational policy makers should now start looking into before further devastating blow is done to our education.

     

    • Muyiwa Idowu

    Lagos

     

  • WAEC urges supervisors on new maths set

    THE West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has asked supervisors and invigilators participating in the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination (private) to ensure that candidates get the new mathematical set.

    Its Head of Nigeria Office (HNO), Charles Eguridu, gave the order during an inspection in Lagos at the weekend.

    Eguridu went round some school in Lagos, including Ransome Kuti Memorial Senior Grammar School, Mushin; Birrel Avenue High School and Herbert Macaulay Girls Secondary, Yaba. Others were Expressway Senior Secondary School, Adeolu Secondary School and Ojodu Senior High School, all in Tolu School Complex, Olodi-Apapa.

    On Eguridu’s entourage were Acting Director Medical Services Dr Adeniyi Adedeji; the Matron Olusola Iyabode; Acting Director, Computer Service Magnus Omorege; Head Test Administration Nzeh Onyemuche; and Head, Protocol, Okoruwa Sunday Thomas.

    As part of the inspection, Eguridu also screened candidates for Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). He said the aim of the screening, among others, was to ensure that candidates who took the Economics paper on Saturday were not only Ebola-free but also medically fit and safe for the exam, noting that it was part of its Corporate Socia l Responsibility (CSR) to its candidates.

    Eguridu, who held a temperature screening device to screen the candidates randomly in some of the schools, denied any rumour that such act is capable of distracting them. He added that it took half a minute to attend a candidate.

    “There is nothing to worry about. It did not affect their performance. It took about 30 seconds to screen them.’’

    He said beside the screening, the council arranged for an ambulance and a medic to handle emergencies, adding that many centres would be covered.

    “It will be a daily exercise for every paper and we would partner governments to ensure Ebola is controlled. We are doing the best we could within our limited resources,” he said.

    He listed places to be covered for now to include Enugu, Calabar, Abuja and Kaduna.

    In answer to a question as to what WAEC would do if a candidate was found to be EVD positive, he said so far, no such case had been reported, assuring: “We will cross the bridge when we get there. That is why we have doctors,” Eguridu stressed.

    Dr Adedeji said over 170 scanners were deployed in Lagos for the exercise. Scoring the exercise as huge success, he said WAEC was on a familiar terrain as it had been providing medical services to its workers and their families over the years. He said the council was working with the Federal Ministry of Health to contain Ebola.

  • Who’s to blame for WAEC failure rate?

    SIR: It is either our leaders and stakeholders are ignorant of certain issues or they deliberately shy away from the truth. How on earth could one blame a standard exam body like West African Examination Council (WAEC) for mass failure?

    Do the education minister and the National Assembly want WAEC to bend their marking scheme or lower the standard of questions?

    To pass exams depends largely on the candidate. How many of our students will leave the search for pleasure and entertainment from internet, films, professional league matches, Satellite TVs, Ozonto dance to embark on the tedious job of reading for exams?

    How many parents nowadays even want and encourage their wads to work hard to pass exams?

    I pity the poor set of people called teachers who have suffered so much to teach at a time when pleasure, entertainment, sports, quick wealth have taken roots in our society.

    When football coaches are dismissing N5 million monthly pay as slavery pay, we expect students to read for examinations when they see and know how poor their teachers are.

    I bet the 32% pass that is causing uproar is largely a product of exams malpractices. Develop a way of stopping malpractices and you will see the real failure rate.

    • Idongesit Inyang,

     

  • WAEC screens GCE candidates for Ebola

    WAEC screens GCE candidates for Ebola

    The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) at the weekend screened candidates taking the General Certificate of Education (GCE) examination at some Lagos centres.

    WAEC’s Head of Nigeria Office (HNO) Charles Eguridu led the screening team.

    Eguridu said the screening, among others, would ensure that candidates who took the Economics paper on Saturday were not only Ebola-free but also medically fit.

    He said the exercise was part of WAEC’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) to its candidates.

    Eguridu, who held an infrared thermometer to screen the candidates in some of the schools, explained that the screening did not distract them.

    According to him, it takes less than a minute to attend a candidate.

    Eguridu said: “There is nothing to worry about. It would not affect their performance. It took about 30 seconds to screen each of them.”

    The WAEC chief said besides the screening, the council arranged for an ambulance and a medic to handle emergencies.

    He said many centres would be covered.

  • APC chieftain: Kogi is on wrong path

    A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and gubernatorial aspirant in Kogi State, Chief Rotimi Obadofin, has described Kogi as a failed state 23 years after its creation.

    Obadofin, in a chat yesterday with journalists at his country home in Ayegunle Gbede in Ijumu Local government Area of the state, asserted that everything is wrong with the state.

    He argued that all the indices of development are not found in Kogi State 23 years after its creation, when compared with others created along with it.

    According to Obadofin: “As a matter of fact, Kogi is a failed state and what we have today is that there is no governance in the state.

    “All the indices to show that we have governance is not there. We have no governance in Kogi. What that means is that nothing is happening.”

    He deplored the poor state of infrastructure, particularly roads, which he said are not motorable.

    Going down memory lane, the APC stalwart pointed out that Kogi was created the same time with Osun and some other states, stressing that while Osun is progressively moving forward in terms of infrastructural development, the latter has stagnated.

    He said: “In Osun States education is free at the expense of the state government. The government pays for WAEC, NECO, for all SSSCE pupils and provides text books for pupils in primary schools.

    “In Osun you can sleep with your eyes closed because crime rate is very low.

    “There is no part in Osun where construction is not going on now but what do you have here other than lamentation by those at the helms of affairs?

    “They give the impression that the state cannot work. That we are so poor that work cannot be done.”

  • WAEC fees: Gombe pupils bemoan government’s failure

    The ambition of thousands of secondary pupils in Gombe State to further their education has been endangered by the state government’s failure to pay their 2014 West African Examination Certificate (WAEC) examination fees.

    This development is coming on the heels of Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo’s declarations that education is his administration’s priority.

    A candidate at the Government Day (Pilot) Secondary School, Gombe, Ahmed Ishaq Usman,  said it is disappointing that the results of public secondary schools candidates who sat for this year’s West Africa Senior Secondary School Examination (WASSCE) were not released together with their counterparts in private schools .

    He said: “Government is not being fair to us and we wonder maybe its because many of their children are studying outside the country.

    “We are appealing to government to correct this injustice because it is we from poor families whose results are being withheld.”

    Another candidate, Ibrahim Nasir Jalo, a resident of Jekadafari quarters, who wrote his examination at Government Day Secondary School, Gandu in Gombe, described the situation as surprising. According to him, government’s inability to pay their examination fees amounted to tampering with their future.

    “We were puzzled when on the day they said results were released, we all rushed to the café. Our mates who wrote their examination in private schools have got their results, but we did not get ours.

    “We asked why and we were told that it is because government did not pay for us. This does not amount to justice,” he explained.

    Jalo appealed to the government to look into the situation and help those of who want to further their education.

    The state Commissioner for Education, Hajiya Aishatu M.B. Ahmed, when contacted for comment, said she was in Abuja for a meeting and refused to speak on the issue.

  • ‘Oyo paid N1.7b as WAEC fees’

    ‘Oyo paid N1.7b as WAEC fees’

    Oyo State has denied it reneged in offsetting the West African Examinations Council’s (WAEC) fees of Senior Secondary School (SSS) III students, who are preparing for examinations.

    The Commissioner for Education, Prof. Solomon Olaniyonu, described Governor Abiola Ajimobi’s administration as a “responsible and responsive government” that would not toy with the lives of its students.

    Olaniyonu, in a statement in Ibadan yesterday, said the government paid N1.7 billion as WAEC fees between 2011 and 2014.

    He said N339 million was paid in 2011 for 60,000 candidates, while N396,548,000, N446,227,600 and N540,410,400 were paid for 76,786; 55,432 and 54,864 candidates as WAEC fees in 2012, 2013 and 2014.

    He said the government over-paid WAEC about N75 million, which was later returned by the body.

    Olaniyonu added that this underscored that the Ajimobi’s administration was a responsible government.

    The commissioner blamed the unfounded rumours on the opposition, which he said were “all out to politicise everything and set the citizens against the government.”

    The government directed all the public secondary school students who sat for the 2014 Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations (SSSCE) to access their results online.

     

  • Chibok abduction: Documents fault WAEC, Police claims

    Chibok abduction: Documents fault WAEC, Police claims

    The government of Borno State took preemptive steps to avert any security breach in Chibok abduction: Documents fault WAEC, Police claims
    and all centres for the Senior School Certificate Examinations, according to documents from the authorities.

    The state alerted the police on the need to protect examination centres in Maiduguri, Biu, Askira, Lassa, Chibok and Auno.

    Also, contrary to the claim of the Head, National Office of WAEC in Nigeria, Mr. Charles Eguridu, there was no time the agency specifically requested for a special security cover for Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok where the 276 girls were abducted on April 15.

    Eguridu  told reporters that WAEC had specifically warned that Chibok wasn’t safe for the May/June 2014 West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) but that Governor Kashim Shettima overruled the warning.

    But Shettima was away for a meeting of Northern governors with the United States Government when WAEC alleged that it raised the alarm on Chibok.

    Details of event before the abduction girls are in some documents obtained by our correspondent. They show that some agencies may have been lying.

    According to sources, while WAEC called for adequate security measures for examination centres, it did not single out Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok for any extra-security arrangement.

    WAEC’s letter to the state government did not give any warning that GGSS Chibok was unsafe.

    A copy of March 19 letter, signed by the Zonal Coordinator of WAEC, F.M Gaiya (on behalf of the national headquarters of WAEC) gave an insight into what the examinations body said about security challenges in Borno State.

    The letter, titled “Urgent intervention towards the conduct of the May/June 2014 WASSCE in Borno State”, and directed to Deputy Governor Zannah Umar Mustapha, said:  “ Your Excellency (Deputy Governor), following my visit to your office with the Honourable Commissioner for Education in the presence of the Director, ERC on ways of conducting a hitch free 2014 WASSCE in the state, I wish to passionately make the following request for the duration of the examination (copy of time table attached).

    “Provision of three (3) pick up vehicles to convey security (sensitive exam) materials on three routes from Maiduguri-Biu (daily); Maiduguri-Auno (daily) and Maiduguri to Askira-Lassa-Chibok (twice weekly).

    “Armed escorts for each route. Adequate security for the examination centres in Maiduguri, Biu, Askira, Lassa and Chibok.

    “In addition, I am pleading for the provision of two houses for the Deputy Registrar/Zonal coordinator and his assistant who have been hobbling from hotel to hotel as a result of the prevailing security situation in the state. Thanking you for your anticipated approval.”

    Based on the letter, the state government alerted Commissioner of Police Lawal Tanko on WAEC’s security needs.

    The state, in a March 20 letter, signed by the Chief Admin Officer, Special Services (Security) at the Government House in Maiduguri, M.M Gana, requested for security  for all examination centres, including Chibok, throughout the duration of the May/June 2014 WASSCE examinations.

    The letter was contrary to the Police Commissioner’s claim at the Presidential Villa on May 2, that the police in Borno State was only required to provide security at the Government Secondary School, Chibok during the day time whereas the abduction took place at night.

    The disclosure made the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, at the meeting, to exonerate the police of any blame.

    She said the police carried out the job demanded of them by the state government.

    Gana’s letter to the Police Commissioner was also titled “Urgent intervention towards the conduct of the May/June 2014 WASSCE in Borno State.”

    The letter said: “Report reaching this office from the office of the zonal coordinator of WASSCE with reference NO: MD/ZO/OA/10/203 dated 19th March, 2014 on the above subject matter requesting the intervention of the State Government for the smooth conduct of the 2014 WASSCE in the State (photocopy attached).

    “ It could be recalled that last year’s WASSCE in the State suffered a setback due to the activities of Boko Haram insurgency. In some centres, students missed examinations, some wrote the examinations in haste and fear while others were unable to even sit for some of the examination. In the light of the above, I am directed to make the following requests for the duration of the examinations. Attached is a copy of the examination time table for guidance.

    “Provision of three (3) police pick up vehicles to convey security men on three routes from Maiduguri-Biu (daily); Maiduguri-Auno (daily) and Maiduguri to Askira-Lassa-Chibok (twice weekly).

    “Provision of armed escorts for each route. Adequate security for the examination centres in Maiduguri, Biu, Askira, Lassa, Chibok and Auno.

    “I am further directed to add that government would arrange three official vehicles for the conveyance of the security/examination materials, one to each of the routes while police would contribute three police patrol vehicles and escort to each route. Thank you for the usual cooperation.”

    A source who spoke in confidence also faulted the Minister of State for Education, Mr. Nyesom Wike, for claiming that the ministry warned the state against conducting examinations in Chibok.

    The source said: “A letter sent from the office of Minister of State for Education which the supervising Minister claimed he used in warning the Borno State Government against conducting the WASSCE in Chibok was said to have focused entirely on Unity Schools, requesting the Borno State Government to move final year students from all federal colleges in the State to collapse them in Maiduguri for the May/June exams, given their relatively fewer number compared to those of Borno.

    “By the letter, the Minister keyed into the model adopted by Borno’s government, which collapsed students in fewer examination centres as against over one hundred located in over 80 public secondary schools and private schools across the state.

    “The Minister neither has controlling or advisory powers over schools owned by Borno State Government and as such he couldn’t have directed the Borno Government not to conduct exams in Chibok.

    “Mr. Nyesom Wike was last week reported saying he wrote advising Borno not to hold examinations in Chibok. There was nothing like that.

    “You  can see that these correspondences contradict the first terms of reference of the Presidential Fact-Finding Committee which was that the committee should establish circumstances why GGSS Chibok was opened when others were closed.

    “WAEC clearly knew that not only GGSS Chibok was opened for examinations.”

    A source, who pleaded no to be named because he is not permitted to speak officially, added: “Also relating to the Chibok incident,  a document showed that  WAEC had written another letter to Borno State Government with reference number MD/ZO/OA/10/204, dated May 10, 2014 requesting for financial assistance.

    “Titled ‘May/June 2014 WASSCE-logistics for conduct of examinations’, signed by the WAEC zonal coordinator, F.M. Gaiya , the body made a submission to the Borno State Government demanding the release of N1, 668,000(one million six hundred and sixty eight thousand Naira) out of which the state government released N1,500,00( One million, five hundred thousand Naira )which the zonal coordinator received.

    “All the correspondences seem to suggest that both the WAEC and the Borno State Government did not anticipate security challenges in Chibok.”

  • My son, 25 others were not allowed to take WASSCE

    My son, 25 others were not allowed to take WASSCE

    MY son and 25 other students of Community Secondary School, Nko in the Yakurr Local Government Area of Cross  River State were duly registered for the West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).

    All these students paid much money before they were registered by the school.

    But to the surprise of the parents, the students were not allowed to take the examinations. All efforts made to know why the students were denied this right were to no avail.

    My fear now is that these students may experience this type of disappointment from the National Examinations Council (NECO) later in the year because they were also registered for the examinations conducted by the NECO by the same school.

    I need explanations from the school  and WAEC on this important matter.

    I also want the governor of the state to intervene because the money paid for the examinations  has not been returned, and the students  are daily weeping because it is their belief that they have lost everything.

    Osikpong Williams Ofem,

    Nko, Yakurr, Cross River State.