Some students of nursing in Abia State, who were allegedly screened out from participating in the re-ordered Preliminary Test Session (PTS) examinations for allegedly presenting fake WAEC results, have claimed they were unjustifiably screened out by the organizers.
This is as the State’s Commissioner for Health, Dr Ngozi Okoronkwo has said that only those whose O’Level results were verified and confirmed to be authentic, were qualified to take part in the first day of the exam, which commenced on Monday.
The fresh examination, which was held at a popular CBT centre in Umuahia, was nearly disrupted when uniform-wearing nursing students tried to stop the exercise while protesting their exclusion from writing the test.
This time around, the complainants included some of the 75 “successful” students whose results were cancelled, especially those from Amachara School of Nursing.
According to some of the students, they were not allowed to take part in the examinations by the organizers who claimed the WAEC results they presented were not verified to be authentic.
However, the students insisted that their results were authentic, while others said that the message informing them to come with their original WAEC results came a few hours before the re-sit examination.
Apart from these, some of the nursing students alleged that they submitted their O’Level results even before being offered preliminary admissions to study nursing.
But the Abia State Commissioner for Health, Dr Ngozi Okoronkwo in reaction, explained that some measures were put in place to ensure that the exercise was conducted in a transparent manner.
According to the Commissioner, a verification process was installed to ensure that only those whose WAEC results were verified to be authentic were allowed to sit for the exercise.
She noted that principals of the schools were urged to ensure that their students came with their original WAEC results for screening, pointing out that those whose results were discovered to be fake were screened out.
Okoronkwo added that a transparency mechanism was put in place where students’ results would be released soon after taking it, disclosing that such successful students would sign their results before leaving the centre to avoid a situation where claims of results manipulation would arise.
Meanwhile, the examinations would continue till Thursday, according to the Abia State ministry of health.
