May 6th, being Saturday was the approved date for over thirty one thousand candidates who applied for the Anambra Teachers recruitment by the Prof Charles Soludo administration.
Little did the candidates who was in the early morning of the examination day, with smile on their faces believe that the whole scenario will turn a bad day.
News Echo who monitored the exercise reports that some of the applicants who participated in the recruitment examination in Anambra State have expressed dissatisfaction over the inability to successfully log in and take the examination due to malfunctioning of the website.
While most of the candidates lamented over poor network. For instance at about 1pm in the afternoon, MTN service network was poor that, some of them could not even open google. While some resorted to other nextwork like Airtel, layer developed slow and unsteady network.
Although some reports gathered showed that some individuals were able to log in and within 30minutes, the website crashed.
One of them who identified himself as Kenechukwu Ibe, lamented that they were 30 minutes into the exam when the site went off, thereby causing disruption in the process.
Joy Chiwanne Okafor from ABBA town Njikoka Local Govt Area of the state who called our Awka correpondent to report the challenges, said that she has tried as many times as possible without any positive answer as the website keeps on throwing her off any times she tries to log in.
Ujunwa Okparaeke, Ifunanya Okeke and Juliet Onu, who spoke at News Echo at one of the Cyber cafe shops along the term site road in Awka, with over eleven others clustered trying to seek assistance from the cyber attendant expressed dismay over the ugly situation. While they echoed, “we are hungry, since morning till now, no network ”
Already, many have decried the level of disappointment, money spent and time in trying to sit for the examination. Laying abuses and expressing sadness.
Rita, Chioma and Ifeanyi told our correpondemt that they have spent nearly one thousand each to cyber attendants in a bid to ensure they have the exam taken but to no avail.
Following the difficulties experienced in the course of the exercise, some Cyber Cafes in Onitsha took advantage of the situation and swindled applicants who apparently were frustrated and desperate to partake in the teachers’ recruitment exam, asking them to pay the sum of N3,500 each with a guarantee of stable network signals but all were to no avail as poor network signals still prevented many applicants from taking part in the recruitment exam.
A source said, “Nobody wrote the exam in Onitsha. There were so many people who came for the exam at post office Onitsha and the post office premises could not accommodate them; so they were directed to Modebe secondary school where they were asked to pay N3,500 each and write down their names.
“At Modebe secondary school, the computers could not log in. Even when people tried to use their phones to log in still it did not work. Those who collected money from the applicants continued to work on their computers still there was no response.
“People began to question why the commissioner didn’t organise the exams in batches instead of directing thousands of Ndi-Anambra to visit one site at the same time. So nobody wrote the test and the commissioner didn’t help matters at all. People left in frustration insulting the commissioner and the governor.
Meanwhile, Commissioner for Education, Prof Ngozi Udeh in a her response denied the allegation that most candidates could not take the exams, sje however, said maybe the server was bad but informed that about 5, 600 candidates wrote the computer based test successfully.
The Commissioner equally told our correspondent that government didn’t create centres for the teachers’ recruitment test; that applicants were told to write the test from the comfort of their homes using their phones and personal computers for the exercise. Again she said no applicant was asked to pay a dime to any person for the recruitment test.
“Maybe the server was bad, I don’t know but we have about 5,600 and some fractions of candidates who wrote and submitted their answers. So because we have complaints, we will report back to the governor and get directives on what to do next.”
Adding “I have not slept for three days now because of this exercise. Shortly after the exam, I received over 3,000 calls on this matter. I don’t know what they meant that the site crashed. Over 6,000 applicants submitted their papers successfully, and that is what I’m going to report to the governor and not what you are telling me that they complained about.”
News Echo recalls that the state, through a public announcement, had called for the application for recruitment of teachers into the state’s school system.
About 40,000 candidates had applied for the 5,000 teachers the state had concluded to employ and out of the 40,000 the state had shortlisted about 31,000 for the online exam which took place on Saturday, from where the required 5,000 would be recruited “based on merit”.
The public announcement in that respect from the state’s ministry of education read partly, “The ministry received 40,000 plus applications. The ministry listed about 31,800 qualified applicants after reviews.
“Against the proposed 5,000 qualified applicants to be shortlisted for CBT exam, the state government directed that all the over 31,000 listed applicants should be given equal chance to participate in a preliminary online exam, before shortlisting the successful applicants for second CBT exam.
