May 20, (THEWILL) – The federal lawmaker representing Ikwo/Ezza South federal constituency in the House of Representatives, Hon. Chinedu Ogah, has raised his voice against plans by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) to make the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) computer-based from 2026.
Ogah stated this during an interview in Abakaliki while bearing his mind on WAEC’s plan to end pen and paper examination this year.
The federal lawmaker, who observed that most students in the hinterland, especially in area where there is no network are not acquainted with the use of computer, urged the federal government to institutionalise ICT in primary and secondary schools first.
He said, “The issue about our education is that the system has purely collapsed. We are rushing things by talking about ICT when we have no network at the hinterlands.
“I want to ask you a question. Is it those of our students that went to community secondary school and have not seen anything computer? How do you think they can write the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME).
“When it came up in the National Assembly, I told them that if we want to do the right thing, let us urge the federal government to deploy ICT to all primary and secondary schools.
“By then, it becomes a course to study in all our schools. They will get acquainted with ICT. Then gradually they will upgrade. By then, there must have been network services in all the local government, wards. And that is when you can talk of going into ICT.
“Talking about WAEC adopting use of CBT, I am a science student. How will you now combine the titration when you are mixing carbon dioxide with CO2 to get a result? If you have an equilibrium when you are now doing a thesis and you bring what is called load, fulcrum and force, how do you measure it by bringing the equation?
“In mathematics, when you have a quadratic equation, quadratic elimination by permutation method, how do you do that with ICT? I said in this way, we talk what cannot work. We are killing our education. We are killing our science.
“Science is purely practical. Our students need to know what practical is all about. And that is the only thing we have in this country. We believe everything is fake and they cannot lead us anywhere”, he said.
Sunday Ogbu is a professional journalist with eight - twelve years experience that had worked with various print and online media. Sunday specializes in news reporting with the aim of educating his readers on current social, political and economic occurences within his area of coverage. Sunday is a strong force to work with in the media industry and uses his positive attitude and tireless energy to encourage others to work hard and succeed. Sunday is inspired daily by his wife and their four children. In his free time, Sunday likes sight-seeing, reading and discussing issues of societal interest.
