No fewer than 1.6 million candidates are expected to participate in this year’s West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) scheduled to begin on Aug. 16.
The Head of National Office (HNO) of West African Examination Council (WAEC), Mr Patrick Areghan, gave the figure in an interview with Journalists.
Areghan said that the council was working day and night toward accommodating some schools still bothering it with late registration.
He said that the development was taking its toll on council’s operations.
Areghan said ahead of the conduct of the 2021 WASSCE, the council was working with relevant stakeholders to ensure a hitch-free WASSCE for school candidates, in spite of some challenges.
Areghan noted that examination conduct required money and other resources.
According to him, the entire process of conducting the examination – from printing of examination materials, distributing them and ensuring security, to recruitment of adhoc staff and printing certificates – is a huge financial burden.
Areghan gave the assurance that WAEC would continue to do all it could to stay afloat.
He noted that West African School Certificate was internationally accepted and required protection of its integrity.
He said that WAEC members had been meeting to fine-tune strategies that would ensure a hitch-free conduct of the examination.
He urged schools and candidates to get prepared ahead of the examination, warning that the council would not tolerate any acts capable of undermining the integrity of the examination.
”Even if you cheat in our objective test, we will catch you, using technology. This technology is called the Item Deferential Profile; it has been there for quite sometime,” he said.
The HNO advised parents not to indulge their children and wards in cheating in examinations by providing money to source for the questions from fraudsters.
”We have carried out a lot of sensitisation, reaching out to parents not to give money to their children in an attempt to patronise rogue website operators and other mischievous individuals, who promise to help get to WAEC questions for them, before the examination.
”There is nothing like that. Some even go as far as saying WAEC normally posts questions on the internet.
“This is laughable and misleading. We have tried as much as possible to enlighten the world that there is nothing like ‘miracle centre’.
”This is a creation of the society and not the council.
“It may be existing in their subconscious but does not exist in our dictionary,” he said.
According to him, there has been no episode of leakage of council’s examination questions in Nigeria since the last, many years ago.
He said that what some sections of the public referred to as leakage during conduct of WASSCE, was the work of internet fraudsters, who registered and sat with genuine candidates in the hall.
”They are served the examination papers, they pretend to be writing the examination, while they manage to snap the questions in collaboration with their mercenaries outside.