The West African Examination Council (WAEC) has expressed its readiness to detect and punish candidates in the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) who benefitted from websites and WhatsApp platforms operated by examination malpractice syndicates.
WAEC, which made this known in a statement made available to newsmen, denied the news making the rounds in the media that question papers of the exams had been leaked to candidates prior to their exam dates.
While saying that the Council’s collaboration with the Police led to the arrest of some individuals connected with exam malpractice syndicates early last year, WAEC explained that what happened in the ongoing WASSCE was not the leaking of question papers, but an active collaboration between heads of some secondary schools and some invigilators who were sent to conduct the exams.
The statement reads in part: “Our monitoring and investigations of the ongoing examination have established the fact that certain school principals, invigilators, supervisors and candidates who had succeeded in smuggling mobile phones and other electronic devices into the examination hall, snap the question papers after the examination must have commenced and forward to their criminal collaborators who in turn provide solutions to the questions and send to their subscribers via rogue websites, SMS, WhatsApp and other social Media.”
The examination body called on the relevant stakeholders to rise and neutralise the threats being posed by examination malpractice to the nation’s education sector, even as it vowed to sanction the affected candidates.
“The Council has the capability and capacity to detect and punish candidates who must have benefited from the fraudulent activities of the operators of the rogue website and WhatsApp platforms.
“Once again, the Council wishes to reiterate that the integrity of the ongoing WASSCE for school candidates, 2018, has not been compromised as no single case of leakage or foreknowledge has been established,” the statement added.
