The candidates who sat for the 2024 May/June West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and have their results being withheld by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) over various reported cases of malpractice will know their fate this Thursday.

The fate is in two folds, which is either having their results released or cancelled entirely.

The affected candidates will get to know this on the council’s portal using their details used during the examination to log in and the same information will also be communicated officially to their schools.

The spokesperson of WAEC Nigeria, Mrs Moyosola Adesina, gave this clue in an interview with Nigerian Tribune on Monday.

It will be recalled that a total of 215,267 (representing 11.92%) out of the total 1,805,216 candidates, who sat the school-based exam are involved in this matter and have been under investigation since the release of the general results in August.

Mrs Adesina noted that the Nigeria Examinations Committee (NEC), which is the highest decision-making organ, on the conduct of various WAEC exams in Nigeria is currently holding a meeting, where it will consider the outcome of the investigations and recommendations of a special committee constituted earlier for the reported exam malpractice, for consideration and approval.

She said NEC meets thrice annually, which are February, April and October to review the conduct of its three diets, May/June school-based exam and the two others for private candidates depending on the period each exam falls.

The ongoing 78th NEC meeting of the council, according to her, will last till Wednesday after which the issue of withheld results for this year’s May/June exam will be laid to rest.

She explained that though WAEC knows the importance of candidates’ results and the essence of time concerning their admission into universities or any other school, the council must follow due process to ensure every candidate earned verdict served him or her.

According to her, WAEC always ensure to do due diligence on matters concerning exams so as not to punish candidates who do not deserve punishment.

She noted that the special committee had factored in complaints and defence made by the affected candidates or their schools who lodged complains in the course of investigations in its recommendations.

Mrs Adesina pointed out that aside that exam malpractice may involve one or multiple candidates or the entire school for a particular subject or multiple subjects, people should also know that exam malpractice that escaped undetected in the exam halls would be detected during marking of scripts.

“That is when you see many candidates attempted the same questions and wrote down their answers word for word, meaning they must have copied themselves.

“Some may also be caught with prohibited items such as sophisticated wrist watches. (Nigerian Tribune)