List of WAECs’ charges for corrections fake

Claim: A Facebook user recently posted a list of sundry charges that candidates sitting for the West African Examination Council (WAEC) would have to pay if they made mistakes in their personal details.

Verdict: The claim is false. The post, which claimed that a correction of change of name would cost N70,000, is false, among other 13 items on the list.

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A Facebook user, Olatoke AbdulAzeez Kolawole, recently posted a list purporting to emanate from WAEC on payment on some lists of activities to make corrections for filling personal details wrong in the course of registering for the exams.

The user, who intended to warn parents to be careful when their ward is filling the registration form for the exams said, “Dear parents and guardians, take proper look at the rates above from WAEC. The examination body is not kidding at all. Kindly guide the students with filling the correct birth date and names; subsequent correction is not cheap.”

Does WAEC change date of birth on certificates?

The document started with the price for correction of date of birth, which it stated would cost N70,000, followed by attestation of result, N80,000; correction of name, N30,000, correction of gender, N30,000, confirmation of result (international), N39,000 and confirmation of result (local), N19,500.

Others include use of internet, N650; loss of exam number, N3,900; pin resolution, N910; sealed scratch card, N13,000; result checker, N3,250; syllabuses, N520; examiner report, 6,500 and amendment on entry, N6,500.

The Council has labelled the document as fake on its official X account, formerly Twitter, stating that it did not emanate from them.

Daily Trust on Sunday reports that the Council stopped making corrections to date of birth in 2017 in what it described as a way to curb examination malpractice.

The Council had stated in a press release that, “We have observed with chagrin, the volume of requests for amendments by candidates, as well as the fact that it could be an opening for examination malpractice; hence the need to stop the ugly trend. Moreover, where a candidate detects any error in his/her date of birth after the certificate has been printed, he/she will be advised to obtain an affidavit from a court of law as a support to the certificate.

“The Council has included in its registration portal, a secondary opportunity for candidates to confirm the correctness of all their entries in the date of birth box. In addition, all requests received prior to the above-stated effective date will be treated on their merit,” it stated.

Similarly, the Council’s current charge is N10,000 for correction on names.