The West African Examination Council (WAEC) says the performance of candidates in its 2017 May/June West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) is an improvement over the ones recorded in the recent past.
The council’s Head of National Office, Mr Olu Adenipekun, said this in Lagos on Monday, at a news conference to announce results of the May/June diet of the examination.
He said that 923,486 of the 1,559,162 candidates that sat for the examination, representing 59.22 per cent, obtained a minimum of credits in five subjects and above, including English Language and Mathematics.
The official said the percentage of candidates in this category in the WASSCE for school candidates was an improvement on what was obtained in the same examination in both 2015 and 2016 diets, with 38.68 and 52.97 respectively.
Adenipekun, however, said some 214,952 results of candidates that sat for the examination were being withheld in connection with various reported cases of examination malpractice.
Giving a further breakdown of the results, the WAEC boss said that 1,084,214 candidates, representing 69.94 per cent, obtained credits and above in six subjects.
He said that 1,243,772 candidates, representing 87.05 per cent, obtained credits and above in four subjects.
He added that of the 1,559,162 candidates that sat for the examination, 1,471,151, representing 94.36 per cent, had their results fully processed and released.
The WAEC official called on candidates who sat for the examination to check the details of their performance on the council’s result website within the next few hours.
Meanwhile, a specialised university solely for Information and Communications Technology related courses will take off in Abuja in September.
The minister of communications Adebayo Shittu, who disclosed this when the 31-member committee on the proposed ICT university submitted its report in Abuja Monday, also said the university would further boost ICT development in Nigeria.
Though the Federal Executive Council would still need to deliberate on the report, he said he was confidence it would be adopted by FEC
According to the minister, FEC would likely come up with a memorandum on the proposed school after their deliberation in the two weeks.
He said the specialised ICT tertiary school, which would be the first of its kind in Africa, is expected to create thousands of jobs across Nigeria.
The ministry, he said, was already sourcing for the Vice Chancellor for the school while the lecturers would be sourced mostly from India, Malaysia, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, South Korea and other countries.
He said the university would have it curriculum structured in such way that every student who pass through the school would not only come out of it grounded in his/her course, but would also automatically be a potential jobs creator.
He said the school would be jointly funded by the government and the private sector, with assistance from some foreign-based IT companies.
The minister said quite a number of private companies had already signified their willingness to be part of the school and this makes the September take off date very feasible.
Earlier in his speech before the submission of the report, the chairman of the committee, former executive secretary of the National University Commission (NUC)Professor Julius Okojie said the specialised ICT university would give the country an edge over other countries competing in Africa.
He urged the federal government to employ the best hands to work in the school.
