By Bunmi Oguns, Associate Editor
The Nigeria Examinations Committee (NEC) of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), has approved appropriate sanctions for all established cases of malpractice, as prescribed in 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 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,.
Some candidates will also suffer other sanctions such as barring them from sitting for its examinations for a certain number of years, while some schools will be derecognized, their Principals reported to the ministry of education for disciplinary action, while erring supervisors will be blacklisted.
The Head of Public Affairs Department of the council, Mr. Demianus Ojijeogu said in a statement, that the decisions of the committee taken at its 62nd meeting, held recently in Lagos, will be implemented without delay and the affected candidates and schools will be duly informed by the council, adding that the results of candidates who were exonerated by the committee will be released.
The committee, he noted, also considered special cases, clemency cases, restitution, petitions and previous cases referred for further investigation from previous examinations. The committee also received a report on the statistics of entries and results for the November/December 2015 WASSCE.
“In addition, it received and considered the general résumé of the chief examiners’ reports on the WASSCE for school candidates, 2016. With regard to the general resume of the chief examiners’ reports on the WASSCE for school candidates, 2016, the committee noted the observation by the chief examiners that the standard of the papers compared favorably with those of previous years. The chief examiners generally reported that the questions were set within the scope of the syllabuses. They also agreed that the rubrics were clear and the marking schemes were comprehensive.
“The Committee noted the various shortcomings of the candidates as reported by the chief examiners and re-emphasised some of the remedies suggested which are that governments at all levels should train and retrain teachers through workshops and seminars to keep them abreast with global best practices in the teaching of various subjects; that candidates should be exposed to more practical activities and that teachers should make use of the feedback provided by WAEC through chief examiners’ reports to prepare candidates adequately for its examinations.”
The Committee, he added, commended the council for providing Braille question papers to candidates that were visually impaired, question papers with bold prints to albino candidates to allow for easy reading and additional supervisors for the hearing impaired to read the questions for them at designated centers.
“It also commended the council for deploying a technology that can stop candidates barred because of malpractice from registration for its examinations for a stated period. In addition, as a result of the high incidence of schools writing on the chalkboards for their students to copy during the WASSCE for school candidates, 2016, decided that if a school is warned for aiding and abetting cheating three times within a period of five years, it would be derecognized. It also took a decision to withdraw the recognition of two schools for assaulting a supervisor. “
Ojijeogu said that the committee also resolved that, henceforth, any school that allow candidates to be impersonated during the WASSCE for school candidates will be sanctioned, just as it frowned at a situation where candidates forge the signature of supervisors on their scripts.