Registrar of West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Dr Iyi Uwadiae, has condemned some secondary schools nationwide of inflating Continuous Assessment Scores (CAS) of their students.
Uwadiae spoke in Lagos at the two-day international summit on examination malpractice with the theme “Examination malpractice: The contemporary realities and antidotes”.
He lamented that schools manufacture continuous assessment scores for students and send to council as part of their grades for May/June WASSCE.
Uwadiae described the action of the schools as another form of examination malpractice that would be dealt with.
The Registrar, however, disclosed that WAEC has developed software for schools to send the continuous assessment scores of their students on annual basis, which would be stored in the data base of the council.
He said: “Continuous assessment scores in many schools were manufactured for a very long time. WAEC has developed in-house software in our offices. Schools are expected to use it from SS1 and SS11. By this method, we will bring sanity about the CAS.
“Software to monitor CAS submission from schools is expensive. We hope the five government nominees on council will help in this direction. By the time the software is in use, it will bring to an end the manufacturing of CAS from schools.’’
On the danger Information and Communications Technology (ICT) poses to conduct of examination, the Registrar noted that WAEC Nigeria has developed customized calculator without chips, which is used during the school and private candidate examinations.
“The customised calculator is given to candidates during registration; WAEC is the solely distributor of the calculators. From 2018, we want all candidates for our examinations to have it,” he explained.
The WAEC boss directed the five Heads of National Office (HNOs) present at the summit to ensure the calculators are put to use from the May/June 2018 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
