The West African Examinations Council has increased registration fees for candidates for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination from N13,950 to N18,000.

WAEC Head of National Office, Patrick Areghan, made this known while announcing the release of results of the 2021 WASSCE for school candidates on Monday in Lagos.

Mr Areghan said the increment was due to unabating spiral inflation in the country, and worsened devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As can be seen, in the general cost of doing business and the multiplier effect of insecurity in the country which have consequential effects on the cost of our operations, it is no longer possible to continue to provide services with the current fee of N13,950 per candidate.

“We have received approval from the appropriate quarters with effect from the WASSCE for School Candidates 2022 to charge N18,000 per candidate.

“We are, therefore, asking all school principals to collect N18,000 per candidate for registration.

“Any amount beyond this ceiling will not be to our consent or knowledge and will definitely not come to the purse of the West African Examinations Council,” Mr Areghan warned.

The WAEC boss noted that a part of the new fees would go into remunerations enhancement for the various examination functionaries with effect from 2022 as approved by the council’s Governing Board.

Giving a breakdown of this year’s WASSCE, Areghan said a total of 1,573,849 candidates registered for the examination from the 19,425 recognised secondary schools in the country.

Of the registered candidates, 1,560,261 actually sat for the examination and results of 1,256,990 candidates were fully processed and released, while 303,271 others were still being processed due to some unresolved issues.

The WAEC boss said that efforts were being made to speedily complete the processing to enable all the affected candidates to get their results fully processed and released within the next one week.

(NAN)