Gabriel Dike, Lagos
The management of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has postponed the planned release of the May/June 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
WAEC announced the postponment via it twitter handle and said the results of the school exam will now be released next week.
The council said the decision to postpone the release of the May/June 2020 WASSCE was due to the curfew imposed as a result of the EndSARS protest.
It reads: “Dear candidates, the council had planned to release the results today in fulfillment of our Project 45 but due to the curfew imposed last week, it had to be postponed till next week. The exact date will be made known soon.”
Reacting to the postponment, some candidates accepted the decision while others questioned the rationale.
Magdalene Eyoma asked: “This is confusing. What has curfew got to do with online results.”
A Twitter account, SAN of san Francisco said: “Yaba where WAEC national office is situated was one of the hotspots in Lagos during the crisis, so you expect WAEC staff to defy the curfew? Let’s be reasonable and don’t just criticize for talking sake.”
Many of the candidates expressed concern that some universities online registration for the 2020/2021 admission exercise will close by October ending. Others appealed to the council not to come up with another reason to shift the date again.
WAEC Head of Public Affairs, Mr. Demianus Ojijeogu, told Daily Sun that the if not for the imposed curfew, the school exam results would have been released today (Wednesday) and assured candidates that the council will keep to it promise to announce the results next week.
Ojijeogu said for the first time in six years, the May/June WASSCE was conducted in Chibok Local Government Area in Borno State with about 238 candidates.
Recalled that the management of WAEC in March 2020 put on hold the conduct of the May/June 2020 WASSCE due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The school exam was initially scheduled to start on April 6.
The exam which was taken by over 1.5 million candidates was finally conducted from August 17 to September 12 in 19,129 schools nationwide and also in three countries.