NUT warns states, against taking part in WASSCE without FG approval

The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) has warned state governments in the country against participating in the West African Senior Secondary School Examination (WASSCE) without the participation of Federal Government owned schools.

According to the teachers’ body doing so will not only distort the education sector but will also create chaos that may be very difficult to remediate.

The National Treasurer of the NUT, Mr Segun Raheem stated this in an interview with journalists at the weekend.

According to Raheem, there was a stakeholders’ meeting with the Federal Ministry of Education and other government agencies concerned with the COVID-19 pandemic in which NUT was present, and where it was agreed that anything that would lead to chaos should be avoided.

“We all know that education is on the Concurrent List in the Constitution and that is why when the Federal Government said its schools would not open now, and advised the state governments to key into that. NUT has asked every state chapter to look into the peculiarities of their states and be guided accordingly.

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” Some states have gone far in preparing their terminal students for their final examinations. I am from Lagos State and I can say boldly that the Commissioner for Education has done a lot in this respect. However, schools cannot be reopened unless it is safe to do so.

‘Before the pandemic got to this level, the NCDC said each state should prepare at least 300-bed isolation centre, how many states were able to do that?

“We have to be careful not to use our children as laboratory rats. If the affected students sit for WASSCE now, will they be admitted to the university immediately? No. Some countries reopened schools.and shut them down almost immediately. It is not appropriate that some states will sit for WASSCE and others will not,” he said.

The NUT Treasurer also insisted that it would not be proper to compare Nigeria with other member states of the West African Examinations Council, WAEC, saying the countries were not up to four states in Nigeria in terms of population.

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