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By Gabriel Dike
The Head of Nigeria National Office of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Mr. Patrick Areghan, has accused some schools of shopping for external candidates for the May/June 2021 school exam.
Areghan, who disclosed this in Lagos while announcing the date for the start of the May/June 2021 West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), said the council would not accept the registration of new candidates.
He acknowledged that some schools requested to be allowed to register additional candidates for the school exam scheduled to start tomorrow.
Areghan said the concerned schools had earlier submitted names of non-real candidates for the May/June 2021 WASSCE and now wanted to substitute them for the external candidates they had sought.
His words: “In the school exam, we don’t have walk-in candidates. Up till now (last week) schools were begging to register candidates. Most schools went shopping for external candidates.
“We opened registration for May/June 2021 WASSCE on February 15 and closed in July. Why will schools not able to register candidates within five months. The schools are doing so because of Continuous Assessment Score (CAS).
It is (CAS) a Federal Government policy. We decided to comply to check the registration of external candidates. We caught some schools using cybercafe to upload candidates. When it was time, they wanted to re-upload for external candidates they had shopped for.”
On examination malpractice, Areghan warned schools, candidates and syndicates that WAEC would apply the full weight of the law. He said schools and candidates would be sanctioned while the staff the syndicates would be prosecuted.
The HNO disclosed that May/June 2021 WASSCE would hold in 19,425 secondary schools while 1,573,789 candidates would sit for the exam in 76 subjects made up of 197 papers. It will end on September 30, 2021.
