Governors of the South-West states have agreed to reopen schools for students to resume amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Director-General of the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN), Seye Oyeleye, made this known in a statement made available to journalists on Wednesday.
He said the decision to open the schools was reached by the state governments at the end of a virtual meeting on Tuesday.
According to Oyeleye, the governors agreed to reopen the schools for pupils to sit for the 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination amid the spread of the virus.
The statement read in parts, “The Forum, after careful deliberations, considering peculiarities of each state and options available reached a consensus on the subject matters and are expresses thus: On WAEC examinations; State Commissioners for Education have signified readiness to sit students for the 2019/2020 WAEC examinations.
“At the least, August 3rd, resumption for final year SSS3 students, states should approach the Federal Government at the first instance seeking the postponement of the WAEC exam by at least three weeks from proposed resumption. At the second instance states should directly approach WAEC to seek for an extension of the WAEC Examinations to week commencing August 24.
“All schools, when reopening should have in place incident managers and classroom wardens for every school and every classroom. The designation of the Quality Assurance Department for each state to issue a Safety Compliance Certificate to each school before reopening.”
The state governments also urged WAEC to encourage the administering the use of Computer-Based Tests while each state should deliberately intensify efforts and invest more in education technology.
