The Federal Government has announced the indefinite postponement of this year’s West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination and the National Examinations Council because of the disruption of coronavirus pandemic.



The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, reported this at the daily Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 briefing in Abuja on Tuesday.

Both examinations were set for May and June 2020.

The minister stated that 15 states had already commenced electronic learning for pupils on their local television and radio channels following the stay-at-home orders of the federal and several state governments.

Nwajiuba appealed to fathers to collaborate with the government to ensure that their children were made accessible to learn at the allotted hours and channels.

The minister expressed the government was reviewing at what to do for schools to resume.

According to him, nobody can reopen schools until all attempts have been regulated by the government.

He said: “We have declared that WAEC and NECO for the year have been postponed. This postponement is indefinite at the moment. We will also be searching at what we will do for schools to reopen. As you recall, we ordered that schools be vacated in the last part of March 2020 as soon as this pandemic broke out.

“The lockdown in different parts of the country will obviously affect whether students and teachers will come to school or not. So nobody can reopen schools until we have coordinated all efforts. We are again asking parents to support us.

“We have made provisions available online. The Directorate of Information and Communication Technology in partnership with the Universal Basic Education Commission, the coordinating department, will secure an alliance with State Universal Basic Education Boards in all the states so that they can key into our model.

“About 15 states have already begun learning via various channels that are accessible in their states, particularly local TV and radio. All the programmes they are functioning are recommended by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Commission. Some of those states are Anambra, Lagos, Kaduna, Ondo, Edo, and Ogun. There are different teaching programmes for different times.”

The minister said the biggest test of the government was how to approach pupils who are residing in rural communities without devices to study.

He said, “Our biggest challenge is how to reach children who do not have devices. We re working with the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria to install some of that for primary and secondary school students.”

Not bad but the announcement is coming rather late.