You will need a Primary school certificate and/or testimonial at various stages of your life. When seeking admissions, applying for jobs, or going for screenings/interviews, one of the requirements may be the certificate or its counterpart - the testimonial.
The questions that come up when people are in need of these official documents may surround issues including:
This post will hold you by hand and show you ways out of different issues and concerns regarding your primary school certificate and testimonial.
An official document given to testify to the completion of primary school education is called the Primary School Certificate. A few can refer to this as the First School Leaving Certificate (FSLC) or Primary School Leaving Certificate (PSLC).
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| Sample of Primary 6 Certificate |
A pupil is entitled to collect his or her certificate after he or she must have taken part in the common entrance exam by the state (ministry of education) or federal (National Council of Examination (NECO's NCEE).
Loosely, the Primary School Certificate is called the Primary 6 (VI) certificate in the case of public or government-owned schools and the Primary 5 (V) Certificate in the case of private-owned schools.
This is an official document not only showing that you'd completed your primary education but also testifying to your character, and participation in school activities, and recommending you for your next academic or career pursuits.
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| Sample of a Primary School Testimonial |
A testimonial gives a brief account of a pupil while in school. This document may detail among other things a pupil's admission number, year of entrance and departure, subjects offered in school, well-known extra curriculum activity, and a position held among others.
Obviously, from the explanations above, there is a clear difference between the two documents. A Certificate is mainly a representation of your completion of 6 or 5 years of primary education while the Testimonial, in addition, testifies to your character, academy, and extra-curriculum participation while in the school.
To get your Primary School Leaving Certificate, you have to return to your attended primary school. In case you attended more than one, you may need to visit the last one attended instead.
This is because the last primary school is more likely where you sat for your final exams called Common Entrance Exam.
However, for a few people that went to and completed their primary education in a private primary school but wrote the final exams under a public school or ministry of education, you may get your certificate with the school you spent more years with. Such a private school would collect the certificate for you from the ministry of education.
In the case of testimonials, you can strictly get a testimonial from a school you spend your full primary years with. The school should, under normal circumstances, be able to attest to your character, academic, and non-academic participation than a school where you just spent a year or few days.
If however, you can't get that from the school in question, you can as well approach the last school for help.
I've come across a few cases where the primary schools attended were no more in existence. Such a school might have folded up, closed, or been castigated by the government. We have also got cases of relocation of schools with candidates who have no new addresses.
In this case, you have to approach the Ministry of Education L.I.E office of the town or the local government of the school. This office usually has the records of all schools established in the past, presently, or at present within the local council. Tell your story and they will find the right solution.
A friend needed his testimonial as part of the credentials for a job interview but the school was folded. The L.I.E. office had to issue the state ministry of education testimonial in the name of the folded school.
It's usual to have your primary school certificate and/or testimonial lost, damaged, or misplaced after being issued. The possibility of getting it back may be daunting but it's very possible.
A public primary school may only issue a certificate once, except if there are convincing officially acceptable reasons to reissue that. This is because the certificates are usually kept in the state government's custody - making it difficult to be issued twice.
However, the same government-owned primary school can issue testimonials more than once. Such documents are made from the schools' records and usually on their official letterheads.
Private primary schools, on the other hand, may conveniently issue you another primary school certificate and/or testimonial in case of loss, or damage.
There are a few cases of people collecting their certificates and testimonials by proxies.
As a matter of fact, by law, certificates, and testimonials should be collected in person. However, where there are official and legal representations by a family member, superiors, sponsors, organizations, etc., the testimonials or certificates can be issued to another person on behalf of the owners.
There are cases of people who have one of the primary school certificates and testimonials but not the two. And for their official needs, the recipient asks for a certificate or testimonial but not the two together.
They now want to know if they can use the testimonials, they have, where certificates are required, or if they can use certificates where testimonials are required.
Under normal circumstances, each of these documents has its purpose. You should be in the possession of the two and be on the safer side.
However, experiences had shown that you could use one in place of the other. Organizations accept certificates mostly. Hence, you may not be required to present the testimonials at the same time.
If ever required to present a certificate, you can use a testimonial instead. And if a testimonial, you can present the certificate.
Except the organization wants more than your evidence of primary school education and completion, either of the two should serve rightly.
You can easily imagine being able to collect your primary school certificate or testimonial direct through the internet without having to visit the school, the ministry of education, or the L.I.E. office of the town of the school.
However, this is not widely possible, unlike the WAEC certificate which one can now request online, a primary school certificate may not be possible to collect unless you make it to your school or through a valid proxy, as earlier noted.
It is worth noting, however, that a few primary schools (especially private) are now using the advent of the internet to maintain an online presence. Among the services such avenue can make possible is a request for a testimonial, transcripts, etc.
If your school has a website, kindly check for such updates on it and see if you can request it without being physically present at the school.
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