Fred Ezeh, Abuja

Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has criticized the decision of the Federal Government to pull out of 2020 West African Examinations Council (WAEC), expressing fear that such decision, if not reversed, will have devastating effect on the academic life of Nigerian children.

Atiku, in a tweet, on Saturday, asked the Federal Government to reconsider the decision for the sake of the children’s future.

He said: “As a parent and investor in the education sector, I wish to register that the Nigerian government’s policy of unilaterally cancelling the West African Senior School Certificate Examination, held annually by the West African Examinations Council, is not in Nigeria’s best interest.

“At a time of the global COVID19 pandemic, it is understandable that an abundance of caution be put in place to save lives. However, caution, without consultation, and thoughtful action, may be counterproductive.

“1.5 million Nigerian youths write the West African Senior School Certificate Examination annually. To abruptly cancel this examination is to set back our nation’s youth, and place them behind their contemporaries in other West African countries.

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“This is perilous because Foreign Direct Investments and other economic indicators are tied to the educational indexes of nations. Already, Nigeria lags behind other African nations in crucial indices, like school enrolment, pass rates, and out of school children. This action will further create chaos in the public education system and exacerbate an already bad situation.”

He suggested that rather than cancellation, government should devise better ways to protect the health of Nigerians and prevent the pandemic from escalating.

He added: “We could mobilise all available public and private infrastructures, including primary schools, stadia, and cinemas, for the examinations. In the alternative, the Federal Government can prevail on WAEC to have staggered examinations with a different set of questions for each shift.

“Doing so will allow WAEC Nigeria to implement social/physical distancing and achieve the goal of carrying out the examinations. A win-win scenario.”

He urged the Federal Government to take into account that the lives they are trying to save would be further put at risk, because if the policy is not reversed, tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands of Nigerians, would breach social distancing rules to cross over to neighbouring West African nations to write their WASSCE, rather than miss a year.