WAEC’s new subjects combination is confusion masquerading as reform  

By ELVIS EROMOSELE

The West African Examinations Council, WAEC, has erstwhile again stirred nationalist outcry, this clip implicit its recently released subjects operation for the 2026 examination. In what appears to beryllium a hurried and poorly thought-out reform, WAEC has reordered subjects successful a mode that defies logic, stifles pupil choice, and risks undermining years of learning.

At archetypal glance, the caller operation appears harmless, possibly an effort to align subjects much neatly by discipline. But a person look reveals an alarming deficiency of coordination. Under the caller arrangement, subject students tin nary longer instrumentality Economics, a taxable that has traditionally bridged the spread betwixt subject and the societal sciences. Even much baffling, students successful the Humanities are besides excluded from offering Economics.

According to the caller taxable list, lone students successful the Business section are allowed to instrumentality Economics.

Make it marque sense.

The biggest question is: wherefore now? Why unit Nigerian students, galore of whom are already preparing for their last year, to set to specified a extremist alteration successful little than a year? The 2026 WAEC exam is hardly months away, yet the Council expects students to wantonness subjects they person studied since SS1. How does that enactment learning, fairness, oregon excellence?

Education reforms, by their nature, should beryllium gradual, well-communicated, and rooted successful consultation. This 1 feels similar the nonstop opposite: hasty, disorderly, and devoid of empathy. No nationalist engagement. No wide modulation plan. No mentation of the rationale. Instead, students, parents, and teachers are near scrambling for answers.

Take, for instance, the lawsuit of a subject pupil who has taken Economics since SS1, a pupil who dreams of studying Agricultural Economics oregon Environmental Management astatine the university. Under this caller arrangement, the pupil tin nary longer beryllium for Economics successful WAEC, contempt 2 afloat years of preparation. How bash you explicate to specified a pupil that their effort nary longer counts?

Likewise, students successful the Humanities, those successful Literature, Government, oregon History, are besides barred from taking Economics. In a satellite wherever interdisciplinarity is progressively valued, WAEC seems to beryllium doing the opposite: erecting walls betwixt cognition areas alternatively of gathering bridges.

The question indispensable beryllium asked: Whose involvement is WAEC serving with this abrupt change? It surely doesn’t look to service the interests of Nigerian students. Nor does it look aligned with the goals of acquisition development. On the contrary, it looks similar different top-down directive, conceived without capable input from the existent stakeholders, teachers, students, parents, oregon program experts.

Education should unfastened doors, not adjacent them. It should promote curiosity, not conformity. Yet, this caller taxable operation does precisely the opposite; it limits opportunity. By narrowing who tin instrumentality definite subjects, WAEC is efficaciously dictating vocation paths for young radical earlier they’ve adjacent had the accidental to determine for themselves. This is wholly unacceptable.

WAEC’s mandate is to measure learning, not to restrict it. Its relation is to measurement what students person been taught, not to change the operation of learning midway. When an introspection assemblage starts dictating what subjects beryllium to which departments, and does truthful without capable mentation oregon consultation, it crosses into policymaking territory champion near to program improvement agencies and ministries of education. The Minister of Education indispensable measurement up to the sheet and intervene. He can’t let WAEC to usurp the relation of his ministry.

Furthermore, specified abrupt changes tin person superior implications for assemblage admissions. Many Nigerian universities necessitate Economics arsenic a prerequisite for a wide scope of disciplines beyond Business, including Geography, Sociology, Political Science, and respective hybrid courses. The caller WAEC statement could inadvertently disqualify deserving candidates from pursuing these courses.

There’s nary denying that betterment is necessary. Nigeria’s acquisition strategy needs periodic reappraisal to bespeak evolving realities. But betterment indispensable marque sense. It indispensable beryllium student-centred, data-driven, and inclusive. It indispensable prioritise learners’ needs and guarantee that each student, careless of department, has entree to subjects ...