The West African Examinations Council (WAEC said on Saturday that its maiden Computer Based Test (CBT) for WASSCE first series, for private candidates, would eliminate the major source of examination malpractice.
The council’s Head of National Office (HNO) Dr Amos Josiah Dangut stated this while monitoring the examination in some centres in Lagos.
According to him, the council prepared well, did a lot of sensitisation, and gave the candidates the opportunity to try hands-on before the commencement of the examination.
Recall that council had stated its readiness to conduct the maiden edition of West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE ) first series for private candidates, using the CBT platform.
The examination commenced on Jan. 31 and would be concluded on Feb. 17.
Dangut said that prior to the introduction of the CBT, the contents of the examination were usually let out before the test through some mischief makers who might have a role to play during the examination.
“So, I think with the introduction of this CBT, the issue of candidates having fore knowledge before the commencement of the examination will largely have been eliminated. It can no longer be business as usual.
“The major avenue, source of leakage, where we used to have supervisors carry these question papers from one point to the other will no longer obtain.
“When I say leakage, I mean the tearing of the bag containing the examination questions and sneaking out one. So, with this new concept, this will never happen.
“Again, you can see with the sitting arrangements that the candidates are also separated with cubicles that will not enable them to engage in any form of examination malpractice, coupled with the fact that they have to be dealing with different subjects at the point in time,” he said.
The council boss explained that given the CBT mode of examination, one does not need a special software to check examination malpractice, because the questions vary from one candidate to the other.
Dangut said that so far, the process had been encouraging, as there had not been any reported case of infraction or technical hitch recorded across the designated centres for the examination nationwide.
He said that power supply would not affect the examination as the council had made two alternative arrangements outside public supply.
The HNO said that power was critical in choosing all the centres engaged to conduct the test.
He said that the council was not on the general internet and was using the intranet for the conduct of the examination.
“Today, the general Mathematics is taking place and as you can see, everything is moving on smoothly.
“The systems are top notch, with zero hitches recorded since the commencement of the examination on Jan. 31.
“This examination is being conducted simultaneously across the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
