The Federal Government has said that if there is no shift in the timetable of the West African Examination Council (WAEC), Nigerian final year secondary school students may have to sit for the General Certificate Examinations (GCE) in November.
The Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, made this known during the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 briefing on Thursday in Abuja.
Nwajiuba said sitting for the GCE may become the only option for Nigerian students if the country cannot convince WAEC to shift its examinations for any reason at all.
The Minister however noted that should Nigeria be able to meet up with the WAEC timetable, there was already a negotiated timeline to move local language subjects such as Ibo, Yoruba and Hausa behind to allow all participating countries the needed time to write the general subjects at the same time.
He also said the ministry will be meeting with relevant stakeholders on July 30 to assess preparations for the safe reopening of schools.
According to the Minister: “WAEC unfortunately, is unable to wholesomely move the exams but we have also worked out a negotiated timeline with WAEC on what we call peculiar Nigerian subjects which in the language of WAEC are subjects that are only held in Nigeria such as Ibo , Hausa and Yoruba.
“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.”