Why We Increased Exam Fees To N18,000 – WAEC

The West African Examination Council (WAEC), has said that the marginal increase of the registration fees for its examination from N13,950 to N18,000 was caused by spiral inflation being witnessed in Nigeria.

WAEC head, Nigeria national office, Mr. Patrick Areghan, stated this while visiting a marking centre in Abuja on Thursday.

Areghan said each student writing the examination now has to pay N18,000 as against the former N13,950 fees.

He noted that the conversion of naira to dollar was a misery and that the upward review of fees was necessary to enable the Council render its services efficiently to the Nigerian candidates.

“There has to be that marginal increase to enable us to do better services. The examiners are now happy as we are able to increase their marking fees through this marginal increase. The money actually went for the payments of examiners to enable us to satisfy them so that they can do the job better,” he said.

On whether the Council was planning to introduce the Computer Based Test (CBT) in the conduct of its examinations, Areghan said CBT would only be achieved if the government provide the required facilities to enable it conduct such examinations.

He said WAEC conducts examinations for over 20,000 secondary schools in the country and in 76 subjects and as such it would be difficult to use CBT for its examinations knowing fully well that a candidate could offer as low as eight subjects.

Also speaking, Registrar of Council, Mr Pateh Bah, expressed satisfaction with works carried out by examiners in the centre for prompt release of results.

Bah said the examiners had worked within the time limit of 45 days to make examination results ready.q