The Federal Government has confirmed the indefinite postponement of the 2020 examinations conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the National Examinations Council (NECO) for senior school students. This was confirmed by the Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba while addressing a press conference on Tuesday in Abuja.

Recall that the Ministry of Education had in March shut tertiary institutions, secondary and primary schools in the country as precautionary measures to curtail the spread of COVID-19.

According to the Minister, the Federal Government will communicate a new resumption date to all stakeholders.

“As soon as we arrive at a definite time, we will recommunicate that. We will also be looking at what we will do in order for schools to reopen. As you will recall, we asked that schools vacate in the late part of March as soon as this broke.

“Now it will be a coordinated effort among all the states because the lockdown in various parts will definitely affect how students go to school or not or how teachers come to school or not. So it goes with that saying that nobody can reopen schools now except we coordinate all of that effort,” he said.

Concerning the idea of online learning, He stated that 15 states had already commenced electronic learning for pupils on their local television and radio channels following the stay-at-home orders of the federal and some state governments.

He appealed to parents to cooperate with the government to ensure that their children were made available to learn at the designated hours and channels.

He, however, stated that the biggest challenge of the government is how to reach pupils who are living in rural communities without devices to learn.