SS3 students may sit for GCE if there is no shift in WAEC timetable - FG says

The Federal Government has said that SS3 students may have to sit for the General Certificate Examinations (GCE) in November if there is no shift in the timetable of the West African Examination Council (WAEC).

The Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, said this during the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 briefing on Thursday, July 23, in Abuja.

He said if Nigeria cannot convince WAEC to shift its examinations, sitting for the GCE may become the only option for Nigerian students.

He added that if Nigeria is able to meet up with the WAEC timetable, there is already a negotiated timeline to move local language subjects such as Ibo, Hausa and Yoruba behind to allow all participating countries the needed time to write the general subjects at the same time.

Nwajiuba also said the ministry will be meeting with relevant stakeholders on July 30 to assess preparations towards safe reopening of schools.

The Minister said: "The Ghanaians will take examinations peculiar to them. But they are all in the first part of the time table so we will work out a domestication module that will take our peculiar subjects behind after we have done generals.

"This will buy us the time we need for all of us to be at par with the rest of West Africa and operating at the same time because the unanimity with which WAEC has always worked is still very important to us.

"Nigeria is not moving away from it, the option would have been to go to November to take the GCE external exams. Nigeria is carefully studying that if in the event everything fails, we may go to that way."