Nigerian parents and students can now heave a sigh of relief as the Federal Government on Monday directed secondary schools in the country to reopen as from August 4, 2020 for exit classes only.
The news couldn’t have come at a better time for 1,549, 463 candidates who registered for the 2020 West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (WASSCE).
This recent directive by the Federal Government implies that students have just two weeks to prepare for the West African examination due to start on the 17th of August, 2020.
These were the unanimous decisions reached at a virtual consultative meeting involving the federal ministry of education, commissioners of education of the 36 states, Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT), proprietors of private schools, and chief executives of examination bodies.
Ben Bem Goong, director, press and public relations at the ministry of education in a statement said the meeting also resolved that a passionate appeal be made to the Federal Government through the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 and public-spirited Nigerians for assistance to schools across the country to enable them fast-track preparations for safe reopening, as agreed.
Goong announced that another meeting would be convened Tuesday between the federal ministry and chief executives of examination bodies namely, National Examination Council Nigeria (NECO), National Business and Technical Examinations Board (NABTEB) and National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies (NBAIS) to harmonise their examination dates, which would be conveyed to stakeholders expeditiously by the federal ministry of education.
BusinessDay had earlier reported that the management of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has announced August 3 to September 5 as the commencement date for the conduct of the much-awaited West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination for School Candidates, 2020.
Patrick Areghan, head of Nigeria National Office of WAEC stated that there was a novel development in this arrangement for this year’s examination in the sense that the examination would be held from Monday through Saturday, in order to be able to achieve the five-week span.
He further noted that the choice of the period (August 3rd to September 5‘”, 2020) for the conduct of the examination was not arbitrarily set, adding that WAEC consulted extensively with the governments of all the five-member countries before arriving at the period a duration of the examination.
According to him, in deference to the Federal Government of Nigeria, the five-week arrangement was arrived at in order to make room for the other examining bodies to equally conduct their examinations in good time. The shortening of the period is also of advantage in terms of reducing the period of mass social interaction with its attendant consequences.
