The Registrar of National Examinations Council (NECO) Prof. Godswill Obioma said he’s satisfied with the level of compliance on COVID-19 rules in schools visited in Minna, as the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) begins across the country.
Obioma disclosed this after monitoring conduct of the examinations with the media in three selected schools in Minna on Monday.
He said he was impressed that schools have so far complied with the COVID 19 rules for the conduct of the examination.
“We are sampling three schools, EL-Amin International School, Police Secondary School and Federal Government College, all in Minna.
“NECO embarked on this tour to see that the COVID-19 measures we have drawn out are strictly complied with by schools and students.
“We specified that students and staff will come with their face mask, wash their hands in school with running water and sanitize their hands.
“I am impressed today with what I have seen in the three schools I have gone to. Our interest is to ensure that the two meter apart from one candidate to the other is applied. This is what has happened in these three schools visited, as you can see,’’ he said.
Obioma explained that the schools visited were COVID-19 compliant adding that in the training, their monitors and supervisors were hinted on prognostic monitoring rather than postmortem monitoring.
“Postmortem monitoring is where you come to an entity environment and observe and go away with your records and apply sanctions.
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“NECO is not adopting that because it is obsolete, but based on research, we are applying prognostic monitoring because here, we may meet certain infractions and correct them on the spot.”
Obioma said that even in prognostic monitoring that if the offence is beyond correction, the council would have no choice but to apply sanctions.
He explained that the council designed for the first time “Oath of Allegiance’’ form for every examination official including himself, adding that the oath of allegiance form was a measure of checking officials.
“This form is a kind of commitment in character and in consciousness that if you do not comply, we will apply sanction,’’ he said.
Similarly the registrar said that the council as at Friday, Aug. 21, registered 138,550 candidates for the examination and closed shop three days to the examination.
“We gave every eligible candidate ample opportunity to register as at Friday and that was the sum figure we got,” he said.
The registrar disclosed that to ensure that the examinations are conducted in a safe environment for candidates, officials, and other stakeholders, prepared manual on guidelines in the context of COVID-19.
“These guidelines will cover roles of responsibilities and expectations of various stakeholders which includes, school principals, school proprietors, mangers, parents, guardians, candidates, supervisors and invigilators.
NAN
