WAEC NEC Approves Sanctions for Exam Malpractice

By Funmi Ogundare

The National Examination Committee (NEC) of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has approved appropriate sanctions for all established cases of examination malpractice as prescribed by the rules and regulations governing the conduct of the council’s examinations.

At the two-day 67th meeting of the committee held recently in Lagos, it also approved that the entire results of candidates involved in proven cases, which attract Cancellation of Entire Results (CER) be cancelled, while subject results of those involved in proven cases which attract Cancellation of Subject Results (CSR) be similarly cancelled.

The acting Head of Public Affairs of WAEC, Mr. Demianus Ojijeogu said in a statement that in the course of considering the various reported cases of malpractice after diligent deliberations, some candidates will suffer other sanctions such as barring them from sitting for its examinations for a certain number of years, adding that the decisions of the committee will be implemented without delay and the affected candidates and examination centres duly informed.

“However, the results of candidates who were exonerated by the committee will be released.”
The statement read in parts: “The committee considered special cases, clemency cases and restitution cases from the WASSCE for private candidates, 2018 second series and 2019 first series.”

He said the committee received a report on the statistics of entries and results for the WASSCE for school candidates 2018, and also received and considered the general résumé of the Chief Examiners’ reports on the WASSCE for private candidates, 2018 second series.

“The committee received and considered reports on the activities of the Aptitude Tests Department (ATD) for the period between October 2018 to February 2019 and on the activities of the research department of the council for the period between October 2018 and March 2019.

“With regard to the general résumé of the chief examiners’ reports on the WASSCE for private candidates, 2018 second series, the committee noted the observation by the chief examiners that the standard of the papers compared favourably with those of previous years and that the clarity and unambiguity of the questions were worthy of note.

“They also reported that the rubrics were clear, questions were explicit and the marking schemes were comprehensive. The committee noted the various shortcomings of the candidates as reported by the chief examiners,” Ojijeogu said.

He added that the committee observed that there was a decrease in incidence of examination malpractice in the WASSCE for school candidates, 2018 when compared to that of 2016 and 2017 and commended the council for deploying the virtual digital printing and other innovations to forestall examination malpractice.

It also commended WAEC for initiatives such as electronic marking of selected subjects with its attendant reduction of human intervention during marking; walk-in-candidates option that has expanded access to examination for candidates, that have greatly improved its service delivery to its stakeholders.

They urged the council to keep synergising with relevant stakeholders to reduce the menace drastically, while stressing the need for ministries of education to adopt the WAEC chief examiners’ reports as a handbook for teachers and students in order to improve teaching and learning which will eventually lead to the enhancement of candidates’ performance in the various diets of WASSCE.