By The West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Tuesday, appealed to the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, State Governments and corporate organisations for funds to provide Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for manpower that would conduct the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
Mr. Patrick Areghan, the Head of WAEC Nigeria National Office, while making the appeal, lamented that the examination would be conducted under unfriendly conditions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, adding that it would cost the Council more than N50 million to give one face mask and one hand sanitizer to each of its supervisor nationwide.
“There are many well-spirited individuals donating face masks and hand sanitizers – that is what we are asking for.
“Even if we are going to give only one washable/reusable face mask and one bottle of hand sanitizer to every staff and supervisor that will not cost us less than N50 million.
“And if we make it two per staff and supervisor, that will not cost us less than N100 million.
” A committee has already worked on it; these are not just ficticious figures. We have even done negotiations with some companies.
“If we now say if you have hand sanitizers, give us; if you have face masks, give us, is it out of place?” he asked at the briefing at the Council’s headquarters in Yaba.
“But now we are going to have one supervisor to about 150 candidates in order to maintain this social or physical distancing.
“All these have cost implications. For example, we are going to engage 23, 250 supervisors from 10,667. That is a lot of money.
“Now, we have 19,129 schools. If a school has 300 candidates for example, we are going to have two supervisors. And it also even depends on the number of classrooms they are going to use because we are going to maintain social distancing of two metres apart.
“How many candidates will sit in a hall like this and put one supervisor there? So we are really going to spend more money than originally budgeted.”
“The examination has also been shortened by four weeks to reduce the period of mass interaction and check the spread of the coronavirus disease.
“Schools will be required to have soap and running water for hand washing; hand sanitizers, non-contact infrared thermometers, as well as face masks for all candidates, as there would be two-metre spacing between candidates while regular hand washing would be required during the examination.”Mr. Patrick said.
The WAEC Nigerian head, also stated that the examination would hold at the same time in the other four member countries, as the international timetable for the examination would be domesticated for use in Nigeria to align with local time.
