Tina Amanda
An Educationist in Rivers state, Reginald Osigbo, has advised against running a discordant program for the forthcoming West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASCE) in the country.
Osigbo who disclosed this in an interview with our correspondent Tina Amanda, said the nation should work together to maintain the uniform program that already exists in the education system of Nigeria.
According to him, the Presidency and National Assembly need to have a common agreement on the way forward in reopening schools for senior secondary students to participate in the 2020 WAEC, as writing the exam in regions may not be the best option.
“Who runs the National policy on education, no State on its own runs it. If the North says they are not going to participate in the West African School Certificate Examination but the South-West is planning to go ahead with it. The South-South has not come up with anything neither the South-East, will the South-West go ahead to write the exam on their own? It implies that the North, South-South and Southeast would not write and that will not be good for the nation.
“If this happens, it will mean the National Assembly has no more overriding powers over the actions of the state, which does not mean well for us.
“The Presidency and National Assembly should strategise on national plan to get the states together and agree on common ground for students to write the 2020 WASCE”
He, however, noted that there will be lots of negative impacts if students who are supposed to write WAEC in August 2020, do not participate.
“If other West African Countries go ahead to write Senior WAEC exams and we don’t, it means we are going to lose out and more children will get involved in criminality and gangsterism activities.
“The population that will sit for Joint Admission and Matriculation Board JAMB examination next year 2021 will be so high, which the Universities would be unable to accommodate. I think there should be a meeting for stakeholders from the National Assembly, State House Assembly Representatives, State Governor’s to agree on common grounds”
He also urged the government to provide an enabling environment that will safeguard the students while writing the WAEC examination.
