The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has announced plans to challenge a High Court decision that dismissed its application regarding the release of withheld West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results.

The court ruling came after four students, representing all affected candidates, filed a case against WAEC over the withholding of their results due to alleged examination irregularities and malpractice.

In an interview with Citi News, WAEC’s Head of Legal Affairs, Rev. Victor Brew, confirmed that the council would seek a stay of execution at the Court of Appeal as part of the legal process.

“We are going to repeat the stay of execution application at the court of appeal in line with what is established procedure in court matters,” he stated.

Rev. Brew, however, assured that the broader release of results for candidates not directly involved in the ongoing legal proceedings would proceed as scheduled on February 28.

“As for 28th [February], it is for the generality of all outstanding results and just to clarify these are just a portion of all the outstanding results. So even as these 10,000 candidates went to court, we are still working and so 28th is a date to say that all results finally would have been worked on,” he explained.

He added that candidates cleared of any wrongdoing would have their results reinstated, while those found guilty of malpractice would face cancellations.

“Those that are exonerated, they would have their results uncanceled. Those that will be found culpable will have their results canceled. Perhaps the only group of people will be those students who took us to court, and we have to respect the court procedure,” Rev. Brew noted.

He also mentioned that the release would include candidates who failed to appear before WAEC for questioning regarding their withheld results.