- Kwara arranges exam for 16-year-old patient
Hammed Shittu in Ilorin
The Gombe State Commissioner for Education, Dr. Habu Dahiru, yesterday, said seven students of Government Girls Secondary School Doma, tested positive to COVID-19, bringing the total number of students infected with the virus to eight in the state.
This is coming as the Kwara State government has arranged for a 16-year-old female COVID-19 patient to write her senior secondary school certificate examination at the Kwara State COVID-19/Infectious Disease Centre in Ilorin, the state capital.
An unnamed student of the Government Science Secondary School Gombe, who tested positive to the virus, began his West African Senior School Certificate Examination from the state isolation centre on Monday.
While visiting the unnamed student yesterday, the commissioner said upon the reopening of schools for graduating students, the ministry, in collaboration with the task force on Covid-19, had conducted 1,100 tests.
Dahiru revealed that the seven other students are also candidates of the 2020 WASSCE.
He said, “We gave preference to students returning from epicentre states like Kaduna, Kano, Yobe and Lagos, those places that have registered high cases of Covid-19. “So far, we have tested 1,100 cases, out of which the first case from Government Science Secondary School.
“He was immediately evacuated and isolated. He has written his first paper – Mathematics – and he is writing Agricultural Science today. It will be demoralising for him if we don’t allow him to write his exams.
“The Government of Gombe State under the leadership of Governor Inuwa Yahaya said all students found to be positive of the virus should be taken care of.
Meanwhile, a 16-year-old female COVID-19 patient is sitting her senior secondary school certificate examination at the Kwara State COVID-19/Infectious Disease Centre in Ilorin, the state capital.
The patient —whose name and school were withheld to avoid stigma — wrote her Agricultural Science paper yesterday under close supervision by an official of the West African Examination Council (WAEC).
Team Lead/Manager Case Management Team, Kwara COVID-19/Infectious Diseases Centre, Dr. Kudirat Oladeji-Lambe, told reporters that the candidate is asymptomatic, stable, and fit to write the exams.
“The person in question is one of the final year Senior Secondary School students that have enrolled for the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination and she’s right here writing her exam. She is asymptomatic, which means she does not show any symptoms, and she’s stable. She is just here to observe her two weeks isolation process,” Oladiji-Lambe said.
