The six South-West states say they are ready to reopen schools to enable pupils to sit for the 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
This was one of the resolutions reached by the six state governments at the end of a virtual meeting initiated on Tuesday by the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria, otherwise called DAWN Commission, in collaboration with the forum of South-West education commissioners, special advisers on education and the State Universal Basic Education Board chairmen.
On July 8, Federal Government had reversed its earlier decision on the reopening of schools for final year pupils at all levels to sit for their terminal examinations, including the Junior Secondary School Certificate and the Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations.
The statement made available to journalists, on Wednesday, by the Director-General of the Commission, Seye Oyeleye, partly read, “The Forum, after careful deliberations, considering peculiarities of each state and options available, reached a consensus on the subject matters and are expressed thus: On WAEC examinations; State Commissioners for Education have signified readiness to sit students for the 2019/2020 WAEC examinations.
“At the least, August 3rd, resumption for final year SSS3 students, states should approach the Federal Government at the first instance seeking the postponement of the WAEC exam by at least three weeks from proposed resumption. At the second instance, states should directly approach WAEC to seek for an extension of the WAEC Examinations to week commencing August 24.
“All schools, when reopening should have in place incident managers and classroom wardens for every school and every classroom. The designation of the Quality Assurance Department for each state to issue a Safety Compliance Certificate to each school before reopening.”
The South West state governments also urged WAEC to encourage administering Computer-Based Tests while each state should deliberately intensify efforts and invest more in education technology.