National Examinations Council (NECO) has released this year’s June/July Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) results with 664,747 candidates representing 68.56 per cent recording five credits and above including Mathematics and English Language, even as 13 states are owing the council examination fees of their candidates.

The results showed over 12 per cent increase in the number of candidates that passed the examination as against 52.29 per cent in 2014, and indicated that Delta State recorded the highest pass level while Yobe State recorded the least.

Releasing the results yesterday in Minna, the registrar and chief executive officer of the council, Professor Abdulrashid Garba, said that this year’s examination was a huge success from the conduct and performance of candidates.

According to him, the number of candidates with five credits and above including English and Mathematics was 664,747 representing 68.56 per cent as against 511,931 representing 52.29 per cent in 2014.

On the state by state analysis of the result, he disclosed that Delta State recorded the highest number of passes with 83.5 per cent followed by Edo State with 83.3 per cent, while Yobe State has the lowest number with 36 per cent followed by Zamfara State with 38.5 per cent.

The result showed that of the 22,388 candidates that sat for the examination in Delta State, 18,698 passed with five credits including Mathematics and English, while of the 25,953 candidates who sat for the examination in Edo State, 21,650 passed with five credits and above.

Also, of the 16,106 candidates who sat for the examination in Yobe, only 6,075 passed with five credits and above representing 36 per cent of those who sat for the examination, while only 9,492 of the 24,599 who sat for the examination in Zamfara State passed with five credits and above with English and Mathematics, representing 38.5 per cent.

On the number of states owing the council, the registrar stated, “13 states out of the 36 states and FCT are partially owing the council with many of them working to settle it; NECO is a Nigerian examination body for Nigeria; we know the peculiarities of Nigeria; many are indicating interest to pay”.

On examination malpractice, the registrar stated that seven schools have been deregistered for examination malpractices, stating that the council has various strategies to check such malpractices.