WAEC Massive Failure: Parents, group want papers cancelled

Students writing exams

Strong reactions against the mass failure of candidates in this year’s Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations, SSCE, continued yesterday, with parents and some groups calling for the cancellation of some of the papers, especially English Language.

This is even as the National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, NAPPS, in criticising the conduct of the examination during nighttime hours, described it as unacceptable and detrimental to performance.

Recall that only 38.32% passed English language and Mathematics at the credit level. Both papers are key to securing university admission in the country.

Commentators on the development, especially parents, blamed the mass failure on lapses on the part of the West African Examinations Council, WAEC, regarding the time the English Language exam was written by the candidates.

Those on the platform of Concerned Parents and Educators Network, CPE, called for the cancellation of the English Language paper and an inquest into why some candidates wrote the paper at night.

In a post on the CPE platform by Adegoke Bimpe Atoke, she wrote: “Almighty WAEC has done it again. The pregnancy of a few months ago has finally given birth. Mass failure in Mathematics and English. 450-word essays written with a phone torchlight at 10:30 pm under the rain, with candidates swatting mosquitoes. How did we arrive here?

‘’Our systems need drastic, strategic, urgent reforms. I can’t even eat. I have lost my appetite. Which way is the way forward? If WAEC is not working and has lost relevance, can we have something else? A better mechanism that will address our context as a country.

In another reaction, Abiodun Adesanya Adeleke said: “The necessary body should help to do the needful. The English Language is supposed to be retaken with all the nonsense that happened on that day. Students writing exams till past 9:00 pm with torchlight and in mosquito-infested classes. How do we call that a standardised exam?” Adebayo Ifeoluwa, in his part, noted: “Who is to blame? I am a teacher in one of Lagos State schools, exams started the right time and ended at the right time. When things like this happen,who should we blame? No exam is scheduled to be done at night, so who’s at fault? Thinking out loud.”