No fewer than 402,000 candidates who sat for the May/ June Senior Secondary School Certificate examination conducted the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) may likely forfeit their admission into tertiary institutions for this academic session.
This is owing to the threat by the exam body to withhold the results of the affected candidates whose states failed to pay for their examination fees totaling over N4billion.
There is the fear that the candidates may be shut out of this year's admission into universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, if the council makes good its threat to withhold their results. Investigations revealed that most of the candidates wrote the 2015 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation (JAMB) as 'awaiting result candidates'
A senior staff at the Yaba Head office of WAEC disclosed that about 402,000 candidates who wrote the May/June 2015 West African Senior School Certificate examination (WASSCE) may not get their results to be released in less than two weeks from now.
The Head, National Office (HNO) of WAEC, Mr. Charle Eguridu, warned that unless the 19 defaulting state governments pay the over N4billion debt owned the council, the results of their candidates would not be released.
Sunday Sun learnt that one of the affected states had already paid the registration fees of their candidates barely 72 hours after the council threatened not to release the results of its candidates. However, the management of WAEC has refused to disclose the names of the remaining 18 states which are yet to respond to the threat. The HNO further said the management was yet to receive any invitation from House of Representatives which had at one of its plenary sittings promised to look into the case. Making clarification on the statement credited to Zamfara State Governor, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari, seeking to know whether the non payment of examination fees included both public and private schools, Eguridu said that the N4billion debt owed the council by the states is for only public candidates the states sponsored.
The decision by the management of WAEC to withhold the results of some candidates on account of debt for the registration fees for May/ June 2015 WASSCE is already causing anxiety among candidates and their parents. The inability of the affected states to meet their obligation on the alleged N4billion debt may not be unconnected with the financial difficulties being experienced by some states that couldn't even pay the salaries of their workers for months. Speculations are rife that two states, one in the South West and another in the South East that were badly affected by the financial crunch are on the WAEC debtors' list.
The management of WAEC had earlier last week revealed that 19 states owed the council over N4billion for the registration fees of their sponsored candidates for the May/June 2015 WASSCE and gave the affected states two weeks to settle the debt or the results of their candidates would be withheld.
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