Over 1.57 million candidates are sitting the 2021 West African Senior School Certificate Examinations across the country.

The Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Sonny Echono, made this known on Monday while monitoring the conduct of the WASSCE in Federal Government Girls College, Bwari; and Government Girls Secondary School, Dutse, both in Abuja.

According to the him, the examination is holding in 19,000 centres across the nation.

Echono expressed satisfaction with the conduct of the examination.

Aside from the disruptions witnessed in the South-East, he adjudged the conduct of the 2021 WASSCE as peaceful and stress-free.

He said, “We are very pleased that all around the country, examinations are going on peacefully.

“We have a total of over 19,000 examination centres across the country, while over 1.57m candidates registered for their examinations.

“Besides the disruptions we had on September 13 in the South East where some of our candidates were stopped from sitting the examination, it is a peaceful and stress-free examination.”

He confirmed that the examination centres are complying with all the standards and ethics of examinations.

According to the Permanent Secretary, the number of cases of examination malpractices witnessed during internal examinations in public schools is low, compared to private schools.

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“We don’t see much of malpractices in internal examinations like this because these are students who are already in school; but the only place where we have one or two cases is where examiners in private schools try to assist the students,” he said.

Echono further disclosed that the Federal Government is addressing incidences and cases of examination malpractices already recorded during tertiary admission exams and would arrest any person found culpable .

“We are pursuing very hard cases, incidence or possibilities of examinations malpractice.

“We have a zero tolerance for examinations malpractice, we punish and arrest any person found culpable and ensure that credibility is restored to our system

“We do not have challenges this year in terms of preparing the students. Aside the COVID-19, we have situations in some states that had led to closing down schools, but we made alternative arrangements, especially exit classes to take this examinations, so we are satisfied with the arrangements

“We collate examination malpractices at the end of the examinations , we collaborate with examination bodies like JAMB, exam ethics [an NGO] to fish out culprits because we have a lot of miscreant who are deceiving people. We are going to undertake a general overhaul for all those offering so-called services to candidates,” he said.