You need to resit maths exam WAEC tells finance Minister Kemi Adeosun

The West African Examination Council offered Kemi Adeosun, the minister of finance, to resit an exam in mathematics – Adeosun goofed last week while doing simple arithmetic and said that the addition of 16 billion and 6 billion would amount to N24billion.

Kemi Adeosun, Nigeria’s finance minister

The West African Examination Council (WAEC) has offered Kemi Adeosun, the minister of finance, to resit an exam in mathematics, The Whistler reports.

While addressing a press briefing last week, Adeosun alleged that one of the exams body in Nigeria made N16 billion from sale of forms and other services, and got additional N6billion from the federal government bringing the total to ‘N24billion’. Reacting to Adeosun’s arithmetic mistake, Iyi Uwadiae, the registrar of WAEC, faulted the minister’s allegation and offered her a free form to resit maths exam.

“It’s not enough to go to the Senate and reel out figures. The minister should know, that what Nigerian students pay to sit for WAEC examinations is simply an operational/management cost, that covers registration, data keeping and management, printing of examination papers, logistics, marking of scripts and production of certificates. And all these cost about N16 billion Naira.

“WAEC examination is not designed as a revenue generating source for the Federal Government. In fact governments in the past subsidized the examination fees, just to encourage education. The N6 billion she talked about is for payment of salaries and overheads for staff of the council.

“However, we do not know the mathematical formula the Honourable Minister used, when she said the summation of N16 billion Naira and N6 billion Naira was N24 billion Naira. “I think somebody needs to resit her WAEC mathematics examination. And we in WAEC have offered to give her a free WAEC form in this respect,” he said.

Meanwhile, Adeosun’s error generated mixed reactions from Nigerians on social media. While some people viewed her error as an indication of incompetence, others came to her defence, suggesting that her error was a pointer to the fact that no one was beyond making mistakes.