The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) is preparing to call candidates implicated in the 2023 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) to answer for their conduct.
The scripts of more than 22,000 candidates are under investigation for mass cheating.
Due to their use of printed materials, textbooks, and prepared notes in the exam room, as well as their collusion with other candidates, 312 candidates' subject results and those of three private candidates have been cancelled.
In addition, because 41 school candidates and one private candidate had mobile phones in the exam room, their complete results were cancelled. Once more, a handful of candidates' findings are likewise held in hidden from view.
In response to these exam malpractices, John Kapi, the Director of Public Affairs at WAEC, stated that candidates may be banned for a certain period of time for major transgressions.
In the event that candidates commit infractions, they may retake the test the following year.
A portion of the results that may not necessarily be suppressed will be disclosed when the subject officers review the examiners' reports and compare them with the scripts.
However, we offer the candidate a hearing if we discover that there is, in fact, some validity to the information provided by the examiners. In light of this, the candidate will be invited to the office where they will respond to inquiries about anything found in their scripts, the speaker stated.
According to him, the high rate of malpractice could be linked to the inadequate contact time teachers have with students, adding that “at the end of the day, teachers feel they haven’t done enough, so they have to go a step further to join them in the examination hall.”
The Executive Director of the Institute of Education Studies, Dr. Peter Anti, is unhappy about the recurring rate of cheating. However, he expressed his excitement that WAEC is taking steps to crack the whip.
Additionally, Kofi Asare, the Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, expressed similar sentiments about the matter.
"I observe a decrease in the proportion of students who had part of their subject's results cancelled, from 73 to 41, as well as a decrease in the number of students whose full August results were canceled. We'll know for sure the result when we hear back from the countless pupils whose test results have been examined, he said.
