Funmilayo Ogundare
The West Africa Examinations Council (WAEC) yesterday decried the activities of some ‘unscrupulous’ supervisors/invigilators, and in some cases, candidates, who took photographs of question papers while the examination was in progress and forwarded them to their external collaborators.
The acting Head of Public Affairs of the council, Mr. Demianus Ojijeogu, in a statement, said the Councils Monitoring/Investigations unit discovered that collaborators provided solutions to the questions which they sent to their subscribers via criminally-inclined websites, text messages and Whatsapp.
This practice, he noted, is against its regulation as the use of mobile phones in the examination hall is not allowed, adding that some culprits, who were caught in the act in Bauchi, Nasarawa and Rivers States have been arrested and will be prosecuted.
According to the statement, “The attention of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Nigeria, has been drawn to publications on social and other media alleging the leakage of its question papers in the ongoing WASSCE for school candidates, 2020.
“Some have even gone ahead to (mis)quote the Head of National Office of WAEC, Nigeria, Mr. Patrick Areghan, as confirming same. This is far from the truth, and we take very strong exception to it.”
He advised candidates, invigilators and supervisors to shun every act of examination malpractice, noting that the supervisors, who are secondary school teachers, should justify the confidence reposed in them by the various state ministries of education that nominated them to supervise the ongoing WASSC examination.
The WAEC chief re-assured its stakeholders that contrary to the misleading impression, which the publications sought to portray, the integrity of the ongoing WASSCE for school candidates has not been compromised, as none of the question papers has leaked.
