The West African Examination Council (WAEC) says it
is not considering adopting a Computer-Based Test
(CBT) mode for its examinations.
Its Head, National Office, Mr Charles Eguridu, made the
clarification at an interactive forum with the Education
Correspondents on Thursday night in Abuja.
Eguridu said it would amount to “intellectual dishonesty’’
for him to say that the council would introduce CBT in
the next five years or the near future.
According to him, the purpose of education is to prepare
people for life, not to pa$$ examinations; hence the need
to examine different domains which CBT cannot
accommodate.
“There is what we call the cognitive domain; that is
what you have learnt that you can put in your head.
“There is also what we call affective domain that has
to do with your emotions.
“There is also what we call the psychomotor domain
that is skills which you can express using your hands
and your body.
“I am yet to see any education expert who will tell you
that you can measure the psychomotor domain using
CBT.
“Any test that will use computer to evaluate who will
be a good carpenter cannot be a valid test.’’
He said the examinations conducted by the council took
into cognizance the three domains that measured ability
to recall, apply and practicalise.
Eguridu said that in psychomotor domain, candidates did
practical tests in agricultural science in the farm and the
examiner supervised their actual agricultural practice.
He said that those doing woodwork were made to carry
out physical designs of whatever woodwork a$$ignment
they were going to do and evaluated on the outcome of
their work.
The WAEC official said that even Netherlands where
people went to learn CBT had yet to apply CBT in all its
examinations.
He said, “In Netherlands which people emulate in CBT,
they have not been able to migrate 40 per cent.
“How many schools in Nigeria have hardware? How
many schools in Nigeria have the facilities to have
those computers?
“There is the additional problem of electricity and
internet connectivity.
“What JAMB is doing is commendable because theirs is
an admission test; it is a certification examination.’’
Eguridu said that WAEC was using specialised gadgets in
detecting examination malpractice as the device had
ability to transmit any irregularity to its data base in
Lagos.
He said that the council had started encrypting the data
of candidates in their results to avoid falsification.
According to him, WAEC has not had any issue of
examination leakages in the past five years.
The WAEC chief also said that the council had reversed
itself on withholding of results of candidates in those
states that owed it following appeals from the
stakeholders.
He said that the council was still favourably disposed to
granting such credit facilities to states being a service
rendering organisation.
Eguridu urged the affected states to pay up their debts in
order to keep the council running. (NAN)
