From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
National Examinations Council (NECO), on Wednesday released the result of the June/July 2020 Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE Internal) which indicated that 33,470 candidates (2.61%) were involved in various forms of malpractice.
Also, 24 Supervisors were blacklisted for various offences ranging from poor supervision, aiding and abetting, connivance with non-candidates to write answer on chalkboard and so on.
Similarly, 12 schools; four in Adamawa, two in Kaduna, two in Katsina, two in Niger, one each in Taraba States and FCT were recommended for de-recognition for two years for their involvement in mass cheating/whole school cases.
NECO Registrar, Prof. Godswill Obioma, said in a statement that the decision was part of measures to strengthen the examination system and improve the credibility and sanctity of the examination system.
He disclosed that 1,221,447; 665,830 males and 555,617 females, registered for the 2020 SSCE, while 1,209,992; 659,796 males (54.53%) and 550,126 females (45.46%) , sat for the examination.
He said 973,331 candidates (82.68%) made credit and above in English Language, while 1,060,100 candidates (90.08%) made credit and above in Mathematics. Similarly, 894,101 (73.89%) made five Credits and above including English Language and Mathematics.
He warned that the Council has a long-standing tradition of zero tolerance for malpractice, thus, it can be noticed in the malpractice incidence in 2020 which dropped compared to the figure of 2019.
He attributed it to stringent measures taken by NECO which included the deployment of biometric verification devices, strengthening of the examination monitoring strategy in terms of scope and depth, and constitution of trained external monitors.
NECO, however, informed candidates that missed some papers due to the ENDSARS protests in some States that arrangement has been made for them to sit for those papers missed during the forthcoming 2020 SSCE (External) scheduled from Monday 1st February, 2021, to Wednesday 3rd March, 2021.
He said: “These special arrangements will be at no extra cost to these candidates. Upon the release of the 2020 SSCE Internal results, those of the affected candidates will be pending for the papers missed and would be subsequently updated after the supplementary examination results are released.”
