The 2020 Senior School Certificate Examination SSCE, conducted by the West African Examination Council, WAEC, started on smooth and satisfactory note in Kogi State today, with students observing all Covid-19 protocols.

The Kogi State Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Hon. Wemi Jones, who monitored the commencement of the exit examination on Monday said he was satisfied with compliance with the protocols against coronavirus pandemic.

The commissioner, who spoke to newsmen after he led a team from the ministry to monitor the exam in some schools in Lokoja charged schools and candidates to keep up with the compliance.

”Just like we planned, the WAEC examination started today Aug. 17, with Mathematics. So far, it’s been very wonderful; the level of compliance that we have seen is monumental.

”We have been to a number of schools we have inspected and I can say that I am very happy with what I have seen so far”, Jones said.

He noted that other inspectors from the ministry were also doing monitoring simultaneously across the 21 LGAs of Kogi, to ensure total compliance with examination ethics and the protocols against the Covid-19 pandemic.

”The assignment before us now as a ministry is to ensure that we closely supervise and monitor this WAEC exam because we do not want to witness any incident of exam malpractice in Kogi State.

The Commissioner cautioned against examination malpractices warning that anyone caught in the act would face the full weight of the law.

”Anybody that is caught in the web of exam malpractice, whosoever, either principal, teacher, or the learner will face the music squarely because we cannot afford the name of our State to be dragged in the mud”, he said.

He advised principals to remain in their various schools throughout the exam period to do the needful, and ensure they pay particular attention to every ongoing exam.

”We already have our own in-house style of monitoring the principals which we will not divulge; every subject in this WAEC exam is important to us as a ministry and Government.

Mr Yakubu Danladi, the Principal of Muslim Community Secondary School, commended the commissioner and his team for monitoring the WAEC exam to ensure full compliance by schools. Danladi, however noted that the only challenge they had was that the exam was supposed to start by 9:30am but the supervisors came around 10am.

Others schools visited included: Crowdther Memorial College, Bishop Delisle College, Government Day Secondary School, Adankolo, and St. Thomas Aquinas College, all in Lokoja, mong others.