Students Writing WASSCE Test Positive For COVID-19

Following the commencement of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), seven students have contracted COVID-19.

 

According to The Cable, the students who are from Government Girls’ College, Doma, Gombe state, tested positive for the infection after the government carried out tests on the final-year students following their resumption. 

The commissioner for education, Habu Dahiru, revealed this on Wednesday, August 19. Dahiru went on to note that the seven new patients are also candidates writing the WASSCE. 

He also said the students who tested positive would be moved to an isolation centre and they will not be allowed to miss their papers. 

“We gave preference to students returning from epicentre states like Kaduna, Kano, Yobe and Lagos; those places that have registered high cases of COVID-19. 

So far, we have tested 1,100 cases, out of which the first case from Government Science Secondary School. “We have identified another set of students. We only got the results yesterday. 

Seven of them have been found to test positive for the virus. We are making arrangements to evacuate them to the isolation centre. 

We quickly went to the school to identify the seven students and kept them aside,” he said. Legit.ng had earlier reported that rare pictures of a student in Gombe who tested positive to Covid-19 sitting for a paper surfaced online as the WASSCE kicked off across the nation. 

What was so different about his pictures was that despite his positive status, he as writing his exam as his invigilator stood behind him in PPE. 

According to the twitter handle of the Gombe state public health emergency operation centre, the pictures were taken while the boy was writing his mathematics exams on Monday, August 17. In the first picture frame, the boy appeared focused on his exam questions as he wore a face mask. 

In a related development, WAEC on Monday, August 17, commenced its 2020 SSCE for school candidates across the country under strict coronavirus protocols. 1,550,000 candidates would be participating in this year’s examination spread across 19,129 centres nationwide. 

The examination body denied leakage of its Mathematics paper. The head of public affairs of WAEC, Demianus Ojijeogu, said the answers in circulation which were believed to be leaked from the Mathematics subject written Monday, August 13, were fake. 

“No, it’s not true. They were fake. Scammers photoshopped past question papers to sway gullible candidates,” he said.