WAEC goes tough on candidates, schools involved in malpractices
By Elizabeth Osayande
The West African Examinations Council, WAEC, has said candidates and schools caught in any act of malpractice will be dealt with.
This is as the Council stated that those with the complaint have a one-year grace after the release of results to make an appeal.
These decisions and more were reached at the just-concluded 71st meeting of the Nigeria Examinations Committee (NEC) of WAEC held on Tuesday, 27th and Wednesday, 28th April 2021 at the WAEC Testing and Training Centre (WTTC), Ogba, Lagos.
In a release signed by the Acting Head Public Affairs, WAEC, Mr Demianus Ojijeogu, the decisions were part of the decisions reached at the meeting by the Committee which is the highest decision making organ of WAEC.
“ The Committee, after diligent deliberations, approved appropriate sanctions in all established cases of malpractice, as prescribed by the rules and regulations governing the conduct of the Council’s examinations.
“ It approved that the entire results of candidates involved in proven cases, which attracted Cancellation of Entire Results (CER), be cancelled, while subject results of those involved in proven cases, which attracted Cancellation of Subject Results (CSR), be similarly cancelled.
“In addition, some candidates will also suffer other sanctions such as barring them from sitting for the Council’s examinations for two years, some schools will be derecognized for a specified number of years or have their recognition completely withdrawn, some supervisors that were found wanting in the discharge of their examination duties will be formally reported to their employers and blacklisted while some Invigilators will also be reported to the appropriate authorities for disciplinary action.
“ The decisions of the Committee will be implemented without delay and the affected candidates and examination centres duly informed by the Council.
“However, the results of candidates who were exonerated by the Committee will be released without any further delay,” the statement noted.
Also, the Committee which received other reports thanked the body and other key stakeholders for the effort put in conducting various examinations and in the fight against malpractice.
The Committee also received a report on the statistics of entries and finally, on the proposal of time limit for candidates to challenge NEC decisions on examination malpractice cases, the Committee decided that: “all exhibits should be disposed of one (1) year after the release of results;
“The decision to dispose of exhibits one year after the release of results should be publicized using the Council’s website, social media, paid adverts, schools and direct contact with candidates;
“Appeals against NEC decisions should be received from affected candidates within one (1) year from the date of the release of results of the examination;
“Appeals against decisions taken years ago should cease after one (1) year from the approval of this proposal;
“All the exhibits in storage should be properly disposed of at the expiration of a period of one (1) year from the date of the decision of this Committee if there are no pending litigations that will require them.”