WAEC announces new electronic marking method starting November/December

– WAEC has announced a new marking method for its examinations
– Mr Olutise Adenipekun, WAEC’s head of national office, announced that they would switch to e-marking
– Candidates would no longer be allowed to take questions away from the examination hall
Starting with the 2016 November/December West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

The organizing body, West African Examination Council (WAEC) has announced that it will begin marking theory scripts electronically. Mr Olutise Adenipekun, WAEC’s head of national office, on Tuesday, September 2o while speaking to members of the Education Writers’ Association of Nigeria (EWAN) who visited his office explained that the electronic marker was been introduced in order to align the assessment of the examination with international best practices.

“We are providing service and the people we are providing service for are youths of the country and youth naturally are restless. So they also want to see new things,” he said.

Mr Adenipekun while explaining how it would work said that the same booklet would serve for question and answers for the theory section. As a result, candidates would no longer be allowed to take questions away from the examination hall.

He however assured his listeners that the WAEC template of assessing candidates would remain the same. And that the body would not lower the standard of the examination for any reason.

Mr Tunbosun Ogundare, the EWAN Chairman, thanked WAEC for recognizing the association. He then pledged the commitment of the body to improved education coverage towards achieving the required reform in the sector.

However, he appealed to the management of the examination body to extend training and other collaborative programmes to the association’s members as a way of enhancing their knowledge of the education sector, saying such support will help the beneficiaries in the discharge of their responsibilities.

Meanwhile, facts have emerged regarding to how Ekiti state recorded a huge success in the recently concluded National Examination Council (NECO).

In the result released by the examination body recently, Ekiti state topped the chart with the best grades, and shortly after the publication, Jide Egunjobi the commissioner for Education in the Governor Ayodele Fayose-led state, has come out to reveal the secret behind their performance. He said: “Those who were paying for free registration in public exams without first inculcating discipline and hard work in the students did more harm than good for them.
“An unserious student whose parents never suffered to pay either school fees or WAEC and NECO money may not see reason in being serious and dedicated to his studies.

“We found that it was the belief of such students that neither they nor their parents will lose anything after all, if they failed those exams since it was the government that would eventually bear the brunch.

“We backed all these up by fortifying the schools with the right type of books, instructional materials and accorded priority attention to teachers’ welfare.
“We also cancelled manual work such as grass cutting during school hours while our inspectorate division was strengthened to fish out lazy and complacent tutors.”