Billion Naira debt: WAEC Withholds rRsults of Candidates from Eight States

The West African Examinations Council, WAEC, has delayed the results of students from eight federation states who sat for the 2023 West African Senior School Certificate Examination, WASSCE, due to the government’s debt to the council.

This was revealed during a press conference in Lagos on Monday by the Head of National Office, Mr Patrick Areghan, while discussing the findings of the test, which ended 44 days ago.

While the HNO expressed hope that some of the afflicted states would pay up soon, it named Zamfara and Niger as the top debtors. He did not, however, name the remaining states.

While Areghan did not disclose the sum owed by the states individually or collectively, it is believed to be in the hundreds of millions of naira.

“However, Zamfara and Niger states are the highest debtors. Again Zamfara did not present any candidate for this year’s WASSCE,” Areghan explained.

He went on to say”

“Candidates who have fulfilled their financial obligations to the Council can access their results on the Council’s website: www.waecdirect.org. After accessing their results, candidates can visit www.waec.org to confirm, share and download digital copies of their certificates! Copies of the Result Listing will be sent to schools shortly.

“I need to restate that the results of candidates sponsored by states indebted to the Council will not be released now until they pay up. We appeal to them to do so to enable the affected schools/candidates to access their results.”

He stated that the council was able to overcome obstacles such as insecurity and monetary policy, among others, through technical innovation, which resulted in the publication of almost 91% of candidate results.

He explained that out of a total of 1,613,733 candidates who sat for the examination, 1,361,608 candidates (84.38%) received credit or higher in a minimum of any five subjects, while 1,287,920 candidates (79.81%) received credit or higher in a minimum of five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics.

“The conduct of WASSCE for School Candidates, 2023 ended on June 23, 2023, and today, Monday, August 7, 2023, 44 days after the conduct of the last paper, one day short of the existing template, the result is being released
“The council in Nigeria has not rested on its oars, it has rebuilt, reinvented, strengthened, and modernised its product and service delivery to all stakeholders and has continued to prioritize the use of technology in most of its operations to enhance the quality of its service delivery.

”This has positively impacted the prompt release of the result in focus, despite all the inconveniences encountered on the field such as insecurity, non-adherence to registration deadlines, financial issues, inflation, and rogue website operators.

“Today, I am happy to inform you that all the processes leading to the release of 2023 results of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination, WASSCE, for School Candidates, 2023, in Nigeria have been completed,” he added.

cc: Vanguard Ng