WAEC ‘closely watching’ suspected ‘miracle centres’ as 1.6m set to sit for 2022 exams

Ahead of its annual school certificate examination, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) in Nigeria has sounded a strong warning to schools that might want to engage in examination malpractices.

The exam body said such schools risk being derecognised or not having results thereby wasting the entire six years that the candidates must have spent in school.

This was disclosed by the Head of Nigeria national office, Mr. Patrick Areghan, during a press briefing on the conduct of WASSCE for school candidates at the national office in Lagos on Monday.

“We are not oblivious of the existence of the so-called ‘Miracle Centres’, even though this is not our coinage. As a matter of fact, they exist only in the imagination of their operators and patronizers,” said Areghan during his address.

“We are closely watching all suspected schools however remotely located they may be. We will fish them out and deal with them by deploying our in-builtanti-malpractice mechanism.

“It is left for candidates and schools to choose between something or nothing: risk not having your result and wasting the entire six years you spent in school, as per candidates, or as a school, risk being derecognised.”

Read also :WAEC releases 2021 WASSCE results, raises exam fees to N18,000

Ripples Nigeria gathered that a total of 1,607,975 candidates will be sitting for this year’s exam which is billed to hold between 16 May and 23 June, 2022.

Of the total number, 800,055 are males, making up 49.76%, while 800,724 are females, making up 50.24%, and 20,221 schools across the federation provided candidates for the exams.

Candidates are to be examined in 76 subjects, according to Mr. Areghan, made up of 179 papers. And about 30,000 practicing teachers will be acting as supervisors at the exam centers across the country.

Areghan also disclosed that the public schools in Zamfara state and Sokoto state did not present candidates for the exams. The students that would be writing in those states are from private schools.

Candidates have also been told to follow all COVID-19 protocols during the conduct of the exams, as the protocols rolled out by the government will be strictly adhered to.

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