The Federal Government have said pupils in Nigeria might be forced to sit for the General Certificate Examination in November , if the country failed to meet up with this year ’ s timetable for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination .

The government explained that that might become necessary since the West African Examination Council could not shift its WASSCE scheduled to commence on August 4 .

The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, stated these while answering questions from journalists during the press conference of the Presidential Task Force on COVID – 19 .

He , however , said that should Nigeria be able to meet up with WAEC timetable , there was already a negotiated timeline to move local language subjects such as Igbo , Yoruba and Hausa as offered in Nigeria , behind as first written subjects , to allow all participating countries the needed time to write the general subjects at the same time .

Nwajiuba said , “ If you look at what the chairman of the PTF presented in June , he said he was not giving a date for schools resumption. He proposed that in view of WAEC’ s timetable , it would be advisable for those , who could , to try and make arrangements to make use of the available facilities and that is what is stated in the guidelines.

“ In the guidelines, there is a checklist of the requirements to be put in place and we have given a cut – off date , so we can know who needs help. We need to know if the teachers at your own location cannot be provided with masks; if the school is unable to do that we need to know ahead because states that have given date for resumption of schools are setting a timetable along the lines we have already explained and they are free to do this .

“ Many states have come to say they are unable to meet up with that date . That is why the minister ( of Education, Adamu Adamu ) requested that WAEC give us and the schools some time to meet up .

“ 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 Igbo , Hausa , 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 .

“ Nigeria is not moving away from it. The option would have been to go to November to take the GCE external exam; Nigeria is carefully studying that if in the event everything fails , we will may go to that . ”

Punch