Accra, Aug. 4, GNA - The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) on Monday announced that 61 per cent of candidates who wrote the 2003 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) obtained between aggregate six and 30, which is the cut-off point for selection into various programmes in senior secondary schools (SSS) and technical institutions.

The Reverend John Annan Adotey, Head of the National Office of WAEC, told a press conference in Accra that out of 268,284 candidates who sat for the examination, 163,659 candidates had between aggregate six and 30 for six subjects.

He said the results, which were released on July 31, have been sent to the schools.

"The results for schools and statements of results for individual candidates have been sent to the schools through the district directors of education," he said.

Giving a breakdown of the results, Rev. Adotey said 6,196 candidates representing two per cent had aggregate six whilst a total of 18,768 representing seven per cent had between aggregate six and ten. Candidates with aggregate eleven to 20 numbered 52,814 representing 20 per cent and those with aggregate 21 to 30 were 92,077 representing 34 per cent.

Rev. Adotey said a total of 115,748 candidates have been selected for various programmes in SSS and technical institutions.

They are General Arts 42,277, Business 25,806, General Science 18,080, Home Economics 9,221 and Visual Arts 7,010. Agricultural Science had 6,845 candidates while 4,749 candidates have been selected for technical courses and 1,760 for technical institutes.

Rev. Adotey said WAEC has had to deal with various types of irregularities over the years with this year not being an exception. The irregularities included the bringing in of foreign materials such as blank pieces of paper, notes, textbooks and other materials into the examination hall.

He said 50 candidates have had their entire results cancelled while 156 candidates lost one subject result.

The entire results of one candidate were cancelled and the candidate was barred for two years by WAEC for impersonation. Rev. Adotey said the 2003 BECE recorded 207 irregularities with 36 candidates bringing in foreign materials while 14 candidates colluded and were caught in the examination hall by their supervisors and WAEC Inspectors.

He said 134 candidates colluded and had the collusion detected in their scripts, 23 candidates were involved in irregular activities such as tearing part of their question papers, refusing to submit worked scripts, misappropriating the scripts of other candidates and starting work before the order was given.

Giving statistics for the irregularities over the past four years, Rev. Adotey said in 1999 there were 922 cases; 2000 recorded 621 and 2001 had 558. In 2002, when all candidates had to re-sit the BECE, there were only 60 irregularities.

He attributed the success in reducing the trend of examination malpractices to education in the media and urged them to continue to assist the Council to bring all culprits to book. Meanwhile, the Bureau of National Investigations has arrested four students in Koforidua for allegedly selling fake question papers in the ongoing SSS examinations.

Rev. Adotey said the four people went around peddling mock papers of some schools and some past question papers of WAEC, after altering the dates, as leaked papers. The four have been granted bail by the BNI to enable them to continue with their examination but would be prosecuted when the examinations are over.

In another development, two persons have been arrested in Accra and Akwatia for the same offence. The SSS examination ends on August 15.