Statistics from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) show that the 2019 West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) recorded significant improvement in the number of candidates who passed Mathematics (core) and, to an extent, Integrated Science.
According to WAEC, 65.31% of the candidates who sat for the exams this year had between A1 and C6 as compared to figures from 2018.
About 50.52% of the 346,094 candidates who sat for the exams also had between A1 to C6 in the Integrated Science paper.
“Mathematics (Core) recorded the most significant improvement in A1 to C6 over that of 2018 (38.33% to 65.31%). Also, there was a noticeable improvement in Integrated Science (50.52% to 63.17%) with English Language recording a modest improvement of 46.91% to 48.96%. Social Studies also showed a slight improvement in the performance of candidates (73.27% to 75.43%),” a statement from WAEC stated.
The statement was to announce the release of the 2019 WASSCE results.
The examination body indicated that “the entire results of 48,855 (14.12%) candidates have been withheld pending the conclusion of investigations into various cases of examination malpractice detected during and after the conduct od the examination.”
The alleged malpractices included bringing foreign material such as prepared notes, printed material and mobile phones to the examination hall, collusion among candidates, planned cheating which occurred with the connivance of some supervisors and school authorities.
“The withheld results of candidates may be cancelled or released based on the outcome of the investigations”, the statement added.
The Council will despatch the results to the schools and candidates are advised to contact their headmasters for their results.
WAEC has also hosted the results online and candidates who so desire may access their results on its website.
Warning
The Council alerted members of the public especially candidates to be wary of impostors, who promise to change examination results for a fee.
“Candidates are to note that all WAEC results are well secured and can be authenticated. Persons with forged results will be exposed,” WAEC warned.