NPSE is Saturday, May 5

Mr. Sheriff Mohamed Sapateh

The  Head of  National  Officer  (HNO),  West  African  Examinations Council (WAEC)  Sierra Leone, Mr. Sheriff Mohamed Sapateh,  has  said  in Freetown that the National  Primary  School Examinations (NPSE)  2012  will be  conducted countrywide  on Saturday,   5^th  May,  2012.

He explained that senior officials of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology are currently working around the clock to put mechanisms in place to effectively monitor the conduct of the examination.

Mr. Sapateh revealed  that  WAEC  has  put the machinery in place to ensure that  all  examination materials are  conveyed  to the  respective  examination  centres by   Thursday,  May 3 latest.

In  an  exclusive  interview with  this  medium, he said for candidates who  did not  register earlier  for  various  reasons, contingency measures have been made  to allow them to   take  the  examination. He  said  staff  of WAEC  along  with examination agents  will be  involved  in the  monitoring  of  the  examination. He also stated that parents and  guardians  will not be  allowed  to  over crowd the examination  centres  during  the  course  of   the  examinations.

Mr. Safateh further disclosed  that  the  Police  have  been invited  for maximum  security  to ensure  that  the  examination  is  conducted  in  a smooth  atmosphere  to ward of  intruders  and deal with any mal-practice.

He called on Supervisors and Invigilators not to scare candidates during the conduct of the examination.

Mr. Sapateh said,  Supervisors  and  Invigilators  are  required  to  be  presented at  all  examination  centres  by  7:30  a.m. prompt  to enhance  the  smooth  start  of  the   examination.

He revealed that the NPSE  2012  has  a  candidacy  of  96,449  from  the  four  regions of  the  country, with the North  having  31,584, the  Western Area 27,074, the East  21,391 and  the South 16,400.

He also disclosed that they  have  217  Examination  Centres  across  the  country  including  71  in the  North, 59 in the West,  43 in the East,  and  44 in the South.

He observed that this figure of 96449 shows a decrease of one percent over the entry figure of 97,307 in 2011.

He also explained that this year  they have created  new  centres of  4  in the  North,  3  in the   West  and  1 in  the   South to   accommodate  the  candidate  entries  country  wide. He  said  a  total  of   3,004  primary  schools  presented  candidates  for  this   year. He also revealed that they expect to use 2,756 Invigilators and 804  Supervisors  for  the  examination  centres.

He appealed to all Teachers and Head Teachers to support and cooperate with them by involving themselves in the conduct of the examination to make it a success.