The Head of the National Office of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Mr Patrick Areghan has cautioned candidates who are sitting the ongoing school-based West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) nationwide to shun all forms of malpractice.
A total of 1, 576,789 candidates comprising 792,620 males (50.36 per cent) and 781,169 females (49.64 per cent), are sitting the exam across 19,425 recognised secondary schools, comprising 8.052 public and 11,373) private schools nationwide.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Nigerian Tribune, Mr Areghan said the council would not in any way give room for malpractice let alone condone the practice from both the students and the exam officials.
He said it is unfortunate that some candidates and their parents would be looking for what he called “expo” particularly from those he called ‘rogue’ website operators and in the process get defrauded.
According to him, the rogue website operators know that some students instead of burning night candles and preparing very well for the exams would certainly be looking for ‘expo’ that does not even exist anywhere as far as WASSCE is concerned and at the end lose on both sides.
He said any candidate or exam official who is caught cheating or attempting to cheat or aiding malpractice as the case may be during the conduct of the exam anywhere in the country would certainly face the full wrath of the law.
While noting that WAEC had a way of detecting malpractice that escapes from exam halls including in objective tests during the marking, he urged every student to go into the hall and do their exams independently.
He said malpractice is detrimental to the cheater, education sector and the economy as a whole.
