The West African Examination Council (WAEC) on Wednesday released the provisional results for the 2016 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).

A statement signed by Head of Public Affairs of the Council, Agnes Teye-Cudjoe said the results could be assessed on the Council’s website at www.waecgh.org.

The statement, however, said candidates from 321 schools have their results being withheld by the Council, pending investigations into alleged examination irregularities.

The candidates were from a total of 14, 267 schools.

The statement said 180 candidates had their subject results cancelled; while 22 candidates had their entire results cancelled for sending mobile phones to the examination hall and receiving external assistance.

The statement said the Item Differentia Profile (IDP) software was used to detect that 1,025 had cheated in the objective test.

“Their relevant results have, therefore been cancelled,” it said.

It said the ‘Stanine grading system – a trusted system’- was used for the BECE grading.

"This system grades candidates from Grade 1 as highest and Grade 9 as the lowest,” it explained.

Out of the 460,930 candidates who registered for the examination, 239, 898 were males, while 221, 031 were females.

The Council advised all prospective candidates to desist from any examination malpractice to avoid the cancellation of their results.