NECO SSCE year 2020 outstanding despite COVID-19, ENDSARs challenges – Registrar

The National Examinations Council (NECO), has recorded another major breakthrough in the conduct of the 2020 Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE), with over 1 million candidates scored credits and above in mathematics and over 800,000 candidates scored credits in English and above.

Addressing Journalists at a news briefing on the release of 2020 Senior School Certificate Examinations (SSCE), the Chief Executive and Registrar of NECO, Prof. Godswill Obioma disclosed that a total of 894,101 numbers of candidates made five credits and above in English and Mathmatics representing 73.89 percent as compared to 2019 June/July SSCE figures of 829,787, stressing that there is an increase of 2.3 percent.

According to the registrar, a total of 1,112,041 candidates made five credits and above inrrespective of English language and Mathmatics representing 91.91 percent as compared to 2019 June/ July SSCE figures of 1,042,989, adding that there is an increase of 2.01 percent.

He stated that number of candidates that were involved in various forms of examination malpractice in 2020 is 33,470 representing 2.61 percent while 40,630 representing 3,53 percent cases were recorded in 2019.

Prof. Obioma pointed out that the Council had a long-standing tradition for zero tolerance for malpractice noting that it can be noticed that the malpractice incidence in 2020 dropped compared to the figure of 2019.

He attributed the drop in the malpractice incidence to some practices which according to him include the deployment of biometric verification devices, strengthening the examination monitoring strategy in terms of scope and depth as a result of external monitors.

He explained that 12 schools were de- recognition for two years for their involvement in mass cheating, while 24 supervisors were blacklisted for various offences ranging from poor supervision, which include aiding and abeting, connivance with non-candidates to write answer on chalkboard among others.

He gave the names of the States that were de-recognised as as 4 schools in Adamawa, 1 school in Taraba, 2 school in Kaduna, 2 schools in Katsina , 2 schools in Niger and 1 school in FCT.

He maintained that with the outbreak of COVID-19 in February, 2020, a new norm was introduced in the scheme of things.

This new norm, he observed, “has altered not only our way of life but also affected our schedule of activities.” For instance, our 2020 SSCE (1), 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 Examination, the ENDSARs protests erupted across some states in the country leading to the imposition of curfew and closure of schools by some state goverments in order to safe guard lives and property, thus truncating the process of examinations once more.

For 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″.

Prof. Obioma disclosed that the Council has made a special arrangements for those candidates who missed some papers as a result of ENDSARs protest in those states assuring that 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.” he added.