The House of Representatives has urged
President Muhammadu Buhari to reverse the decision of the Federal Ministry of Education to bar Nigerian secondary school students from writing the West African School Certificate Examination and other Common Entrance Examinations.

The House, through a motion sponsored by Nnolim Nnaji and other lawmakers, said the examinations should instead be held under the guidelines issued by Nigeria Centre for Diseases Control, NCDC.
Presenting his motion, Nnaji observed that “the annual West African School Certificate Examinations scheduled to hold between April sixth and June fifth, 2020, was shifted to between August third and September fifth, 2020, due to COVID-19 pandemic.

The House is aware that the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, on Monday, July sixth, 2020 during a briefing at the Presidential Task Force on COVID-I9 at Abuja announced that Nigeria would participate in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination scheduled between August forth, 2020 and September fifth, 2020.
He also expressed concern that on Wednesday, July eight, 2020, the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, announced that schools under the control of the federal government would not be opening for the forthcoming WAEC exams and urged state governments to toe the line of the federal government.

The lawmaker said he was “disturbed by the contradictory pronouncements of the top officials of the Federal Government within such a short space of time, and that Nigeria’s non-participation in this year’s examinations portends serious psychological, socio economic and health effects on the students as well as already overburdened parents and guardians.