THE West African Examination Council (WAEC) on Tuesday in Lagos, unveiled its online portal, for verification of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results.

A proud Dr Iyi Uwadiae, the council’s out going Head of National Office, said with the launch of the portal, the council has moved a notch higher in the business of conducting public examinations.

With the council recently marking its 60th years of operations in Nigeria, he said: " The launching of the online results’ verification portal is coming almost 10 years after the launching of the online results’ checking portal, known as waecdirect in February 2003, and eight years after the take off of the electronic registration portal in November 2004.”  The registration of candidates for the May/June 2005 WASSCE was subsequently done online.

With the new portal, the WAEC boss confirmed that institutions of higher learning, embassies and employers of labour would henceforth be able to check and verify the results of candidates, who took the council’s examinations from the May/June 1980 diet to date.

Individuals and organizations, according to him, will no longer need to physically visit the council’s offices to verify results.

However, the Minster of State for Education, Mr. Ezenwo Wike stated that the state of secondary school education in Nigeria still gives room for serious concern. Speaking at the event, Wike said the current lapses in the education sector require the collective efforts of all stakeholders for the desired improvement in the quality of teaching and learning in the secondary education system to materialize.

But he admitted that the marginal improvement recorded in the 2012 public examinations was an indication that the country "is gradually navigating its way out of the dark clouds that have engulfed the education system at all levels.”

Another area of concern, according to the Minister, is the menace of examination malpractices in the public examinations. He insisted that the elimination of examination fraud remains the only way for the country to achieve a "credible, effective, qualitative and highly competitive secondary education system” in the country.

He said: "I congratulate WAEC for embracing and deploying ICT (Information and Communication Technology) totally to enhance service delivery to the general public. I have no doubt that the effective operation of this e-portal will allow for better and efficient access to WAEC’s secure database, through which candidates results can be easily checked and verified for authenticity”.