The apology tendered by the Head of the Nigeria National Office of WAEC, Amos Dangut, in respect of the midnight examinations conducted in some states is Not Enough to compensate for the losses in marks, time and comportment suffered by candidates during the midnight examinations where students were forced to write English language paper in darkness.
Students/candidates are the most important factor in any exam, internal or external, so they must be treated with due respect and provided a conducive environment to prepare them for their optimal performance. Definitely writing exam in the dark with one hand holding torch and another hand with pen to write exam is not part of a conducive environment. Conducting exam under this inhuman conditions is an ambush to unnecessarily punish the students for the alleged leakage of their examination. The examination should have been postponed instead of punishing students for WAEC’s negligence.
t is shameful for “too serious” adults to conduct dangerous examination for our youths and later deride the same youth as being “unserious” when mass failure results due to the irresponsible attitude of the “too serious” adult generation.
Nothing is sacrosanct about examination timetable that will subject WAEC customers to suffer such indignity and security risk. WAEC has breached its own rule of conducting exam under a conducive environment. This is a faulty step to mass failure.
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In view of this, WAEC should cancel all papers conducted in such frightening condition and reschedule the papers. In the event WAEC finds it difficult to conduct fresh exam for any reason, then at least a twenty percentage (20%) mark should be added across board to all affected students as compensation for ambushing them. It’s discriminatory to have students who wrote their own papers in a conducive environment and another set of students who wrote their own papers in darkness like captives.
The first time WAEC exam leaked majorly was in 1978 tagged “Orijo ’78’, and students were not subjected to the indignity of midnight exam, so why the punishment with another “Orijo” 47 years after.
It is shameful for “too serious” adults to conduct dangerous examination for our youths and later deride the same youth as being “unserious” when mass failure results due to the irresponsible attitude of the “too serious” adult generation. Cancel and reschedule the affected papers now.
*Soetan is of the Citizenship Civic Awareness Centre (08037207856)
