The West African Examinations Council, WAEC, yesterday released results of its candidates, who sat for this year’s May/June West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination, WASSCE.
However, the body held results of candidates from 13 states for inability to pay their exam fees. Head of Nigeria’s Office of WAEC, Mr. Charles Eguridu, made this known in Lagos at a press briefing to announce release of the results.
He said those candidates, who are in their hundreds of thousands, would only have their results released after their states either make full payment of the amount owed the council or present verifiable collateral from reputable banks to pay up at a reasonable period. He, however, refused to mention the affected states to save them possible embarrassment.
Eguridu said it was disheartening that only six out of the 19 earlier announced indebted states, including Ogun, which made it own payment public two weeks ago had offset their debts, while some others were not even shown willingness to pay.
“But honestly speaking, the Governors’ Forum has come into the matter with the aim of providing solution and some states on their own have also approached us and promised to pay very soon but we still a few others that have not even bother at all to show willingness to take up their bills.
“So, at it today (yesterday), only candidates from 23 states would have the opportunity of checking their results from our website starting from tomorrow (today), while those of others will be withheld pending when their states pay or come with reputable banks’ collateral,” he said.
Giving statistics of candidates’ performance in the exam, Eguridu said only 616,370 out of 1, 593,442 (38.68 per cent), obtained credit passes and above in five subjects, including English language and Mathematics, which is the prerequisite grades for admission into tertiary institutions.
He, however, noted that the figure represented a marginal improvement over that of last year, which stood at 31.28 per cent, and the 2013 edition, which was 38.30 per cent.
Eguridu, who said this year’s performance though improved slightly over that of last year, was not satisfactory enough to the council. He urged all the stakeholders to intensify efforts in improving on learning and teaching in their respective schools.
He also disclosed that 95, 373 students, representing 5.99 per cent of total candidates who sat for the exam still have a few of their results being processed due to some errors traceable mainly to them and their schools in the course of registration or writing of the examination.
He pointed out that 118, 101 candidates, representing 7.41 per cent have their own results withheld due to alleged malpractice during the exam.
According to him, while candidates in the former case would get their results released once the errors are rectified; the cases of those in the latter category are being investigated for committee’s recommendation for the next line of action.
He however asked candidates to check their results on the council’s website www.waecdirect.org within the next 24 hours.
