WASSCE: 8,350 private candidates write WAEC’s first CBT

The West African Examination Council (WAEC) has begun its first series of West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for private candidates using the computer-based test (CBT).

Last November, the council adopted the CBT for all of its examinations.

WAEC said the objective tests will be fully computer-based while the essay and test of practical papers will be hybrid.

The council added that questions will be delivered on screen and candidates will write answers on paper booklets.

The examination began on January 31 and is scheduled to end on February 17.

Speaking during a monitoring exercise on Saturday, Amos Dangut, the council’s head of Nigeria office, said CBT will eliminate the major source of examination malpractice.

According to NAN, Dangut said before the adoption of CBT, questions were usually leaked through “tearing of the bag containing the examination papers”.

“So, I think with the introduction of this CBT, the issue of candidates having foreknowledge before the commencement of the examination will largely have been eliminated. It can no longer be business as usual,” he said.

“The major avenue, source of leakage, where we used to have supervisors carry these question papers from one point to the other will no longer obtain.

“When I say leakage, I mean the tearing of the bag containing the examination questions and sneaking out one. So, with this new concept, this will never happen.

“Again, you can see with the sitting arrangements that the candidates are also separated with cubicles that will not enable them to engage in any form of examination malpractice, coupled with the fact that they have to be dealing with different subjects at the point in time.

“We have about 8,350 candidates sitting for this examination as of today because we have the opportunity for people who want to register and start their examination the next day.

“For example, last week, when we were having the briefing exercise, we had about 8,230 candidates, but like I said before, as we speak, we have over 8,350 in all, because of the ‘walk-in’ candidates.

He said ‘walk-in’ candidates are expected to register at least 24 hours before their examination day.

Dangut added that the council have eliminated the issue of power outage by employing two alternatives to supply electricity.

He said the council also adopted an intranet for the conduct of the examination.

Dangut said the results will be out 45 days after the last paper.