Nigeria: Lagos to promote students to next classes using continuous assessments

Students in Lagos State Government-owned schools will be promoted to the next classes using continuous assessments.“(For) the reopening (of schools) we’re doing, we are working with the Federal Government so I will not unilaterally say that we are doing this or that but we are planning,” Adefisayo said during a programme on Channels Television on Thursday.

She continues, “There are two scenarios, if we don’t have third term, it means that we push next session to next year.

“Each one has its own complexity but we will do what is best for the students. But if the students do not do the third term examination, they will use their CA (continuous assessment).”

Both private and public schools in the state were shut in March after Lagos State accounted for Nigeria’s first coronavirus case.

Currently, Nigeria has 48,116 confirmed cases of the virus and Lagos State is leading as the epicentre with 15,984 as of Wednesday.

Lagos State governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu had warned severally that continued non-compliance to safety guidelines issued by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) may lead to a surge in the number of cases

He had insisted that it was unsafe to reopen schools and urged parents to direct their children to learn virtually and through television programmes on state-owned station during the shutdown period.

But due to unavoidable circumstances that students in exit classes should return to school for their West African Examination (WAEC) as directed by the Nigerian government, students writing the exams have resumed school since Tuesday, August 4.

The state’s health commissioner said last month that the state may hit a peak in August.

While it is yet unclear of when and if there will be a full convergence of students resuming to school, Adefisayo said there will be an unusual mode of promoting students to next classes due to the lockdown.

She explained that “this thing (COVID-19 outbreak) started in second term and remember they have CA in the first term and second term and when they come in, we can have a baseline assessment for all of them and that is what we are going to do in our schools, in public schools.”

She said the baseline assessment will determine where the students are promoted.

She, however, stated that there was no definite date yet for the reopening of schools in Lagos State.

A teacher in one of Lagos State schools in Education District II told our correspondent that the government is yet to inform them of the plans to use CA to promote students.

“We have only been hearing rumours but we have not been informed,” the teacher who pleaded anonymity told our correspondent. “I think that is the last option we have since it is likely that we won’t be having the third term.”

Reacting, a parent, Bode Lawal, said the move was understandable and that the government is only exploring the option it has. 

Lawal said he is “not worried about the mode of promotion because the situation was imposed on the government by the coronavirus pandemic.”