From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Candidates in the South East who missed the 2021 West Africa Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) will be given another opportunity to write the examination, the Federal Ministry of Education has said.
Permanent secretary of the ministry, Mr. Sonny Echono, who stated this while monitoring some examination centres in Abuja yesterday frowned at the disruption of ongoing examinations at some centres in the South East.
Some persons suspected to be enforcing the sit-at-home order by the Indigenous people of Biafra (IPOB) on Mondays had invaded schools in the South East chasing out students and teachers from examination halls.
Echono, however, said the ministry of education would put modalities in place to ensure that candidates who missed the examination are given the opportunity to write their missed papers. He expressed satisfaction with the conduct of the examination in other centres across the country.
“We are pleased that around the country, examinations are going on peacefully. We have a total of over 19,000 exams centres across the country with over 1.57million registered candidates. Besides the disruptions we had on September 13 in the South East where some candidates were stopped from doing the exams, it is a peaceful examination. We are complying with all standards and ethics of examinations, we are pursuing very hard more cases, incidence or possibilities of examinations malpractice because we have a zero tolerance for examinations malpractice. We shall punish any person found culpable and ensure that sanity is restored in our system.”
Echono said the ministry did not encounter challenges in preparing students for the examinations, aside the COVID-19 pandemic. He said though some schools were closed in states due to COVID-19 pandemic, alternative arrangements were made especially for exit classes to take the examination.