WAEC Honors 18 Year Old Nigerian Who Emerges West Africa Best Candidate In 2021 WASSCE
The West African Examination Council has honoured an 18-year-old Nigerian, Chinasa Isabella Nweze, for her outstanding performance at the last examination conducted by the body.
Isabella Nwaeze was the West Africa overall best candidate in the 2021 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), having eight distinctions in her registered subjects.
It was reported that she won the first prize in the International Excellence Award Winners for the WASSCE for School candidates, 2022 category and National Distinction/Merit Award Winners for 2022 WASSCE category, while another Nigerian, Godswill Izuchukwu Edeani, emerged 3rd best candidate in West Africa.
The second prize was clinched by Ghanian Brako Kwame Asante.
The President of Nigeria who was represented by Vice President Yemi Osibanjo presented the awards to them during the opening ceremony of the WAEC 70th Annual Council meeting held yesterday in Abuja.
Osibanjo thanked WAEC for its stance against examination malpractice, and said examination cheats must stop.
“Examination cheats will end up as charlatans in whatever field or profession they find themselves. In hospitals, they will be butchers instead of surgeons and in academia, they will plagiarise and bully their students into accepting whatever they offer.
“Thus stifling enquiry and initiative by inquisitive students. As builders, they will build bridges that will cave in before the project is commissioned and storey buildings which will collapse on their occupants.
“Let me, therefore, charge you to spare no effort in your fight against examination malpractice. The Federal Government of Nigeria has played its part by enacting a law, the draft to which you contributed as a major stakeholder, on examination malpractice.
“The examination malpractices decree no. 33 of May 1999 (now Examinations Malpractice Act of 1999) spells out the offences and penalties.
“The war on examination cheats must be not only be stepped up, it must also be won. I expect you to be courageous, to take hurtful decisions when necessary and remain impartial in your judgments and be more prompt in your delivery.
“WAEC deserves commendation, for being the only sub-regional organization established in the Colonial era in Anglophone West Africa, which has not only survived the pull of centrifugal forces of the post-independence era, as a result of often-times misguided nationalism but which has continued to wax stronger.
“I am happy to note, Mr Chairman, that WAEC was able to conduct the 2020 West African Senior School Examination (WASSCE), in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and mark and release the results.
“I must, therefore, congratulate WAEC on the giant strides it has made over the past 70 years of unwavering selfless service to the Nigerian, nay West African Child.
“Since inception, WAEC has not only become a household name but has come a long way and has become much stronger and a giant of no mean status.
“I congratulate WAEC for its resilience and for its meritorious service to the people of the West African Sub-Region, in spite of all the challenges in the education sector.
“Indeed, to its credit, more than 90 per cent of educated adults in the English – Speaking West African countries are products of WAEC one way or the other,” he said.