By Emmanuel Edukugho

PRESENTLY, the West African Examinations Council, WAEC is trying to resolve the crisis of confidence bordering on integrity caused by the conflicting results posted on its website in respect of the May/June 2011 West African Senior School Certificate Examination.

WAEC said the two versions of the results on the same examination was a human error and that an investigative panel has been set up to find out what happened.

The nation is awaiting the findings of the investigation while at the same time insisting that the result released on August 10, 2011, remainded the “authentic and certified results” even though some candidates favoured by the second result released about three weeks later, printed the latest version and sent same to universities and other tertiary institutions for admission purposes.

WAEC, which would be 60 years old in 2012, was established in 1952, comprised of Ghana (formerly Gold Coast), Nigeria, Sierra Leone and The Gambia, while Liberia was admitted a full member in 1974, all of them English-speaking countries.

It started operation as an agency for the universities of London and Cambridge in the conduct of their examinations in West Africa. Later the council took full responsibility for the conduct of WAEC examinations in member nations.

From conducting many other public examinations, WAEC now concentrates on administering only the West African Senior School Certificate Examination in May/June for School candidates and November/December for private candidates.

Averagely, over one million candidates sit for each of the examinations every year.

WAEC has a Test Development and Research Office (TEDRO) which was established by merging the objective Testing Unit and the Nigeria Aptitude Testing Unit to undertake objective Test Development, establish aptitude testing services and carry out research into the council’s testing procedures. That began in March 1966.

Then in June 1966, Multiple Choice Objective tests were introduced for the first time in the conduct of School Certificate and General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary Level examinations in Biology, Chemistry, English Language, Mathematics and Physics as additions to the traditional essay-type questions.

WAEC started the on-line/Electronic Registration (e-Registration) in May 2004 for the May/June 2005 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for school candidates.

In March 2005, it also commenced the on-line/Electronic Registration for the Nov/Dec 2005 WASSCE for private candidates.

The marking of massive examination scripts, especially the essay-type questions became so enormous over the years with increasing number of candidates writing various subjects approved for the school system.

Definitely the manpower required for marking examination scripts is overwhelming and beyond the capacity of the council.

Hence examiners are hired to mark these scripts and should be persons qualified in their subject areas and disciplines cutting across the Arts, Social Sciences, Science, Languages, Mathematics, Technical, Vocational, etc.

They are specialists in their areas, highly competent, responsible, efficient, transparent, honest, patriotic, committed, dedicated, principled, morally strong, have integrity, fair, just, equitable and incorruptible who cannot compromise ethically. They must be above board.

But despite these sterling qualities demanded of the multitude of external examiners mainly drawn from the teaching cadres in secondary and tertiary schools, WAEC can not afford to pay them adequately.

In fact, examiners are not well paid, which WAEC itself has acknowledged, because the body does not have sufficient funding.

Head of WAEC Nigeria office, Dr. Iyi Uwadiae, at a recent briefing when the issue of remunerations for examiners was raised, he praised the examiners for their patriotism in spite of poor allowances they received.

He believed these examiners should be considered as patriots making sacrifice for what they are paid by WAEC is small. And that a case has been made to the Board to review upwards the money given to the examiners.

There are other hazards being faced by WAEC officials in the conduct of examinations such as accidents on the road while conveying question papers to examination centres, possible attacks, working on public holidays, while others are in the comfort of their homes, and so on. WAEC had even lost staff while embarking on assignment.

However, Vanguard Education has learned that WAEC scripts are being marked by students in secondary schools. There are marking schemes, guidelines, how to score answer sheets, and other modalities spelt out by the examination body to be followed strictly for credible scoring.

Are these followed by examiners who give students question papers to mark and grade?

Most of the examiners are teachers and it is believed that they draft brilliant students in senior secondary class to help mark scripts because of the heavy work load involved in going through thousands of scripts.

Why should secondary students mark WAEC scripts when they themselves are not better qualified or above the candidates whose scripts they are marking and grading?