The West African Examination Council has announced the release of provisional results of the 2017

"The council is in the process of dispatching the results to the schools through the Municipal/District Directors of Education," a press release from WAEC said.

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"Meanwhile the Council has hosted the results online and candidates who so desire may access their results online at the Council's website," the statement added.

This year's results have been released 25 days earlier than 2016's, the statement said.

The results of 1,298 candidates have been withheld, the statement said, adding that it will be released after the conclusion of investigations into the various cases of examination malpractice detected during and after the conduct of the examination.

A total of 468,060 candidates made of 241,154 males and females 226,906 females sat for the examination.

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WAEC said the stanine grading system was used for the BECE with "Grad 1" as the highest  and "Grade 9" being the lowest.

Candidates who get admission into public secondary school will benefit from the government's free secondary school programme.