WAEC BEGINS MAY\JUNE EXAM WITH 1.84MILLION CANDIDATES
A total of 1.84 million SS3 students will sit for this year’s May/June West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE), which begins Today, Tuesday, nationwide.
The students are from a total of 22,229 government and approved private secondary schools across the country. They consist of 902,328 males (representing 49.73%) and 912,016 females (representing 50.27%) of the total candidates, higher by 192,948 candidates than last year.
They will be examined in a total of 76 subjects, and the exam will last seven weeks and six days, with results released 45 days after the last paper. Similarly, the candidates will have the opportunity to collect their certificates at no extra cost from their respective schools 90 days after the exam. The Head of National Office of WAEC Nigeria, Dr. Amos Dangut, made this known on Monday at a media conference held at the headquarters office of WAEC in Yaba, Lagos.
He said WAEC is ready to conduct a hitch-free exam, as all modalities and measures to achieve that projection had been put in place. Dangut pointed out that the exam would be held across all 36 states of the federation, including those more prone to security challenges and the Federal Capital Territory.
He said WAEC had sought collaboration with the Nigeria Police Force and other relevant security agencies to provide adequate protection for candidates, exam officials, and exam materials during the exercise, and that the agencies had assured the organization of their readiness.
He added that a total of 30,000 teachers, nominated by various state ministries of education, would serve as exam supervisors. The exam would also be held simultaneously in three other WAEC member countries: Gambia, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, while Ghana would hold theirs in August. While frowning at exam malpractice, Dangut warned all candidates, exam supervisors, teachers, schools, principals, parents, and also importantly the operators of dubious websites against exam malpractice.
He said WAEC as a body would not create any loophole for exam malpractice and that any individual, group, or institution that aids or indulges in the act and is caught in any form of exam malpractice and found culpable of the practice would face the wrath of the law. He said students should know that WAEC would not set questions outside subjects’ syllabi and therefore should study well for the exam.
WAEC had even gone ahead to further aid the students’ preparations for the exam by providing some of its past question papers with marking schemes online and making them accessible to candidates. He said once they study well for the exam, they would certainly excel while wishing them all well.