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Michael Babatunde
The National Examinations Council has said that 11,455 students representing 0.9% of 1,221,447 candidates who registered for the 2020 SSCE were absent at examination centres.
The council also said it has blacklisted 24 supervisors for aiding, abetting and conniving with non-candidates to write answers on chalkboards.
The Registrar, Professor Godswill Obioma made this disclosure while announcing the release of the 2020 Senior School Certificate Examination results at the NECO headquarters in Minna, Niger State.
A total of 12 schools were also derocognized for engaging in mass cheating. The schools were four schools in Adamawa State, two each in Kaduna, Katsina and Niger States as well as one each in Taraba State and the FCT.
Giving the statistics, Obioma said of the 1,221,447 candidates registered for the exam, 665,830 representing 54.5% were males while 555,617 representing 45.5% were females.
1,209,992 candidates which accounts for 99% of those who registered sat for the examination.
He said the number of candidates who made five Credits and above including English Language and Mathematics was 894,101 representing 73.89%.
The result shows a 2.3% increase in performance when compared to 2019 June/July SSCE figures of 829,787
The Registrar added that the Council has made arrangements for candidates who missed some papers due to the EndSARS protests in their state to sit for the papers.
In his words, “We wish to inform the general public that the Council has made special arrangements for those candidates who missed some papers due to the EndSARS protests in those states. The affected candidates will now sit for those papers missed during the forthcoming 2020 SSCE (External) scheduled from Monday 1st February 2021 to Wednesday 3rd March 2021.
“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.”
While thanking all stakeholders for the successful conduct of the examination Obioma explained that the COVID-19 pandemic and the EndSARS protests in 2020 were responsible for changes in schedules.
“This new norm has altered not only our way of life but also affected our schedule of activities. For instance, our 2020 SSCE (I) would have been written from 28th May 2020 to 10th July 2020. However, due to the Covid-19 Pandemic, the Examination was rescheduled to hold from Monday 5th October 2020 to Wednesday 18th November 2020.
“It is rather unfortunate to note that barely two weeks into the commencement of the Examinations, the EndSARS protests erupted across some states in the country leading to the imposition of curfew and closure of schools by some State Governments in order to safeguard lives and property, thus truncating the process of examinations once more.
“For the security of personnel and materials, the examinations were suspended nationwide pending when normalcy returned. On return of normalcy, the examinations that were initially scheduled to end on Wednesday, 18th November 2020 continued till 28th of November 2020,” Obioma explained.
