Exit Secondary school students in Enugu State on Monday commenced the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) conducted by the West African Examinations Council(WAEC) by observing COVID-19 protocols.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the schools visited during the examination complied with the COVID-19 safety protocols as the students wore facemasks and sat two meters away from one another.
At the Federal Government College (FGC), Independence Layout, Enugu, the Principal, Mr Ejeh Usman, said that no fewer than 506 students were participating in the examination.
Usman said that the school deployed infrared thermometers to check the temperature of students before entering the examination hall.
He said that hand-wash facilities and sanitisers were positioned at strategic locations within the school environment .
The principal said that the school did its best to prepare the students for the examination in spite of the outbreak of the COVID-19 that altered the school calendar.
“During the four months that the students stayed at home, we organised online classes to prepare them for this examination. We also had marathon revision classes in the last two weeks.
“So, they will not be much affected,” Usman said.
At Day Secondary School, Independence Layout, the principal, Mrs Maria Nnanwike-Nwodo, said that she had high hopes that the students would do well in spite of the prevailing situation.
“Our students approached this examination with high hopes because that is what they had expected. We prepared them well for this,” she said.
Nnanwike-Nwodo said that the observance of two meters physical distance would not affect the outcome of the examination.
She said that such would help to checkmate examination malpractice.
“The spacing you observed has given the student self confidence and will help to deal with malpractice,” Nnanwike-Nwodo said.
However, the Principal, Queens School, Enugu, Mrs Ada Nweke expressed worry that the first paper to be written was mathematics.
Nweke said that no fewer than 312 students were taking the examination in the school.
“Mathematics should have been one of the last last papers to be written so that the students would have gotten much confidence before then,” she said.
Nweke however, said that the school did its best to prepare the students within the two weeks revision window, adding that they introduced morning and evening revision sessions per day.
Meanwhile, the Senior Prefect, Queens Secondary School, Miss Favour Gozie-Mba, said that it was scary going into the exam to take mathematics as the first paper.
Gozie-Mba described the first paper as good but tough, adding “ we struggled to remember some of the things we read and were taught.”
