MANY students writing the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) are stranded in several states in Nigeria, including Osun and Kwara, and will remain in examination halls till midnight, The ICIR was reliably informed by affected parents on Wednesday, May 28.
Parents said their children told them the English Language paper they were supposed to write leaked, and the examination was delayed instead of being cancelled or rescheduled.
“Some of the children in Offa (Kwara State) are just returning home now. My son who is writing the examination in Osun State said he was told that he would be in the hall till midnight,” one of the parents, based in Offa told our reporter at 9:30 pm.
When asked if provisions for security and accommodation were made for the students, the distressed mother said, “There is nothing like that. I don’t know where my son will sleep.”
Several videos posted on Facebook, including this, this and this also show Nigerians condemning the development.
This is another twist to the examination which some students wrote using torch lights inside the dark in a widely-circulated video. The Federal Ministry of Education condemned the development and described it as “completely unacceptable.”
The West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) conducts WASSCE in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Gambia. The examination body was founded in 1951.
The latest development follows the glitch that forced 336,845 candidates to resit the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination conducted by the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB) recently.
The ICIR reported that the glitch led to a candidate committing suicide in Lagos State after she obtained a low mark.
At least one student writing the current WASSCE has died.
When contacted Wednesday night by our reporter, WAEC spokesperson, Moyosola Adesina, initially declined to comment on the delay that led to keeping students in examination halls. She said: “We are doing a press release to address this question. Please, can you just give us a moment?”
When pressured to say whether the claim is true or not, she said, “Eh, (she screamed anxiously) “I can’t say whether it’s true or not. Just let the press release come out. I don’t want to give an unofficial statement. I want it to be an official statement. I don’t want to say something here and say another thing there.
“The way you asked me the question is different from the way another person will ask the question. Whatever we did was not a deliberate attempt. It was not intended to cause any problem or any harm. It was just to protect the integrity of our examinations.”
Marcus bears the light, and he beams it everywhere. He's a good governance and decent society advocate. He's The ICIR Reporter of the Year 2022 and has been the organisation's News Editor since September 2023. Contact him via email @ mfatunmole@icirnigeria.org
Total reform needs to be made in our educational sector. This is a total disgrace.