The West African Examination Council (WAEC) has assured there are arrangements in place to cater for students who may be affected by COVID-19 during the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, the Public Relations Officer for WAEC, Agnes Tei Cudjoe, said candidates whose papers are disrupted will be granted clemency.
“We have instances where, upon reports, we are able to put in place our clemency machinery so if we have those issues, that can be taken into consideration.”
For candidates who will be in isolation, they will have the option of the private WASSCE in November.
“But in instances where the candidate is in isolation somewhere and cannot write the paper, we have another edition of the WASSCE. We have the private candidate edition that is coming up in November. Such candidates will be given the opportunity to write that one,” Agnes Tei Cudjoe noted.
The examination body also says calls for a review of the WASSCE time table will be forwarded to the international committee for redress.
This is after a call for a review of the WASSCE examination timetable which has been described by an education think tank, Africa Education Watch as “strenuous”.
“This is one of the constraints we had to work with. We are conducting the exams over a shorter period and again there are some candidates who are doing some combination which runs across programmes.”
“So all these intricacies are needed to be taken into consideration. We are also looking at the timetable with some of the member countries that have certain subject combinations,” Agnes Tei Cudjoe said.
Over 370,000 candidates, from Monday, July 20, began sitting for the 2020 WASSCE.
Visual Arts candidates kicked off the WASSCE today with their projects.
Theory papers are set to commence from August 3, 2020, until September 5, 2020.