The National Examinations Council, NECO on Thursday announced the June/July 2013 result with a total of 719, 593 out of the 1, 034, 263 candidates who wrote the exams, scoring at least  five credits.

The result this year is some cheery news coming after three consecutive years of mass failure at Senior School Certificate Examination SSCE.

Appraising the result in Minna, the registrar and the chief Executive of the Council, Promise Okpala, said that 681,507 candidates representing 66.63 per cent made credit pass and above in English Language while 668,314 candidates or 65.50 percent recorded same in Mathematics.

In Biology, 66.88 percent had credit and above while 66.68 per cent of the candidates that wrote Physics and 66.41 percent Chemistry candidates equally made credit pass and above.

In all, 128 blind students sat for the examination.

Giving a comparative analysis of students’ performance in the last three years, Okpala said the council witnessed “rises in performance from 15.84 per cent in 2011 through 51.66 per cent last year to this year’s 69.57 per cent”.

He attributed the improved performance to the resolve by federal and states governments as well as stakeholders to improve the quality of teaching and learning in the country, adding the improved performances over the years were “empirical indications that the efforts of the President, Ministry of Education are yielding positive results”.

Okpala pointed out that the Council has zero tolerance for examination malpractices as the number of candidates involved in examinations malpractices dropped to 8,308  or 0.80 percent.

“We have sanctioned schools and candidates involved in examination malpractices through de-registration or cancellation of results, and we have de-registered 36 schools for a period of two years,” he added.