The West African Examinations Council (WAEC), has released provisional results for the 2016\u00a0Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).<\/p>\n
A statement from the council outlined that, 460, 930 candidates from 14,267 schools sat for the examination. This number of candidates marks a 5.2 percent rise in the 2015 figures.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”8FGImos15a8oey19EhK667ayus9nslZd”]Malpractices<\/strong><\/p>\n 188 candidates\u00a0had their results cancelled, 22 of them entirely for bringing mobile phones into the examination room, and receiving external assistance, according to the statement.<\/p>\n The statement also noted that, individual candidates from 1,025 schools were identified to have cheated, via the Item Differentia Profile (IDP) software, and they had their relevant subjects cancelled.<\/p>\n The IDP software was introduced by the Council to curb cheating in objective tests.<\/p>\n No leaks<\/strong><\/p>\n The 2016 BECE passed without the near-annual occurrence of leaked examination papers ahead of the sittings.\u00a0The 2015 BECE saw the leaks of some of the examination papers leading to the\u00a0cancellation of five papers<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n In an effort to curb the leaks, the Council decided to start flying examination question papers to examination centres.<\/p>\n The absence of leaks in 2016 notwithstanding, WAEC has said the entire results of candidates from 321 schools have also been withheld pending the conclusion of investigations \u00a0into alleged malpractices.<\/p>\n