WAEC Releases Alarming 5-Year Report on Rising Exam Malpractices in Nigeria

With alarming statistics, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) has drawn attention to rising examination misconduct rates during a five-year period from 2020 to 2024.

According to WAEC, in the 2024 test year, 532,891 subject results were withheld, 38,693 results were canceled, and 462 whole results were canceled.

587,001 results were withheld, 59,433 were annulled, and 658 total results were cancelled in the 2023 data.

With the 2020 data showing a downscaling of 3,235 results withheld, 10,496 cancelled, and 510 full results cancelled, the 2022 and 2021 periods were not all that different from the one before them.

At a Volta/Oti segment called “Engagement with Major Stakeholders” in Ho, which included regional and district directors of education from the two sister regions, Mr. Daniel Nii Dodoo, head of humanities, WAEC, Accra, revealed this.

Teacher unions, security agencies, and other pertinent organizations are among the others.

He stated that since exam misconduct compromises the integrity of the educational system and increases the threat to society, it must be eradicated as a national security concern.

According to him, the circumstance is an example of unethical behavior intended to obtain an unfair advantage during assessments. This type of behavior is becoming more common in West Africa due to socioeconomic pressure, a culture of impunity, and insufficient regulatory environments.

He emphasized how exam cheating undermines educational integrity, produces graduates who lack critical skills, and produces a workforce that is ill-prepared and fundamentally incompetent, endangering long-term progress and future prosperity.

According to him, addressing exam anomalies must involve more than just WAEC; it also calls for enlisting the help of the government, educational institutions, parents, communities, and students as a whole.

Mr. Dodoo advocated for a variety of strategies to lessen the threat, including enforcing laws, utilizing technology, involving stakeholders, encouraging moral education, and enacting sanctions.

According to him, the government must address the threat by developing policies, allocating resources, and launching public awareness campaigns through the Ministry of Ghana Education Service.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr. John Kapi, Head of Public Affairs, WAEC, Accra, revealed that among the responses from sessions already held nationwide are distaste for the school ranking policy, which calls for its elimination with resources allocated fairly to focal points in exam monitoring and BECE placement.

“As technocrats, we have urged the professional associations of teachers, GNAT, NAGRAT, and CHASS, to release strategic roadmaps and recommend that the government examine existing policies before proceeding to the next phase.

He said that the threat might be reduced by closer cooperation with all parties involved in the administration of the exam, including the government, the House of Chiefs, the security services, directors of education, students, teachers, and regional managers of faith-based institutions.

In a video exposé, he revealed that exam cheating and irregularities have become more sophisticated and networked, with collaborators using sophisticated strategies to outsmart the system. These strategies include projecting answers, copying from mobile devices and tablets, introducing external and foreign materials, dictating answers, offering money in exchange for solving questions, setting up syndicates to solve questions, impersonating, and—rarest of all—hiding in ceilings ostensibly to cheat.

Along with serialization and item randomization for the objective test, which will be replicated with written text, he said WAEC is utilizing technology by introducing computer-based testing, which is now being piloted, in the belief that this lessens the threat of exam cheating.

In order to prevent examination malpractice at the basic and senior high levels, Mr. Kapi stated that the council would soon distribute customized question papers with barcodes and identifiable features for every applicant.

A revised rules and regulations document has been made available to enhance the foundation of the examination, he said, and District Directors of Education are encouraged to use it aggressively to educate applicants in their jurisdictions about the need to stop cheating on exams.

The findings, according to Madam Irene Jacquelinda Attabra, Ag, Oti Regional Director of Education, were alarming but not unavoidable, and she urged important players to join the fight against examination methods in the educational system.

Participants in an open forum anonymously demanded that the 70% performance contract with school heads without corresponding infrastructure be eliminated, that schools be ranked according to an even kilt, that invigilators’ allowances be paid promptly, that WAEC regulations be applied uniformly to all schools, that exam centers be made accessible, and that aggressive awareness-raising be done about the threat of exam cheating.