The West African Examinations Council [WAEC] has released its West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination [WASSCE] results for private candidates in the 2019 January/February Examination.

The Head, Nigeria National Office of WAEC, Olu Adenipekun, announced that 39, 557 candidates obtained credits and above in a minimum of five subjects including English Language and Mathematics in the January/February diet.

“A total of 3,102 candidates representing 26.08 per cent obtained credit and above in a minimum of five subjects including English Language and General Mathematics. The percentage of candidates in this category in the WASSCE for Private Candidates 2018 – First Series was 17.5 per cent,” he said.

The examination, which was introduced as a second alternative for private candidates apart from the November/December WASSCE, was written by 11,892 candidates out of 12,202 that registered.

Adenipekun said 11,686 had their results fully processed while on 206 had their results withheld for errors which are still being processed.

He added that 376 candidates (3.16 per cent) had their results withheld because of examination malpractice.

The HNO said the incidence of examination malpractice was low because the number of candidates was manageable compared to the school examination written by over one million candidates yearly.

“It is very difficult to have a large number of candidates writing an examination and not have examination malpractice. But the size of the candidates for this diet of exam allows us to monitor closely the ad-hoc staff better than other diets.

“For this diet, we had Council staff monitoring each centre in addition to the supervisors and others. So this worked to reduce examination malpractice,” he said.

Regarding results withheld for errors, Adenipekun said the Council had made efforts to reduce errors in the process of registration but still patiently sorts through scripts to identify candidates who made mistakes in their registration numbers or who submitted scripts without names.

Giving further statistics about the examination, Adenipekun said 6,180 (52 per cent9 candidates who took the examination were male, while 5,712 were female.

The HNO expressed hope that this particular diet of WASSCE for private candidates would soon gain popularity such that it would reduce the pressure for those outside the secondary school to register for the school examination conducted in April/May.