The West African Examinations Council, WAEC, says an ongoing investigation into how the contact details of some examiners for the 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) leaked, would be concluded soon.
WAEC’s response comes only after Education think tank, Africa Education Watch, launched its 2020 WASSCE Report titled ‘An independent assessment of the conduct of the 2020 WASSCE by WAEC on Wednesday, June 16, 2021, criticizing the Council for doing little to ensure the prosecution of officials who engage in exam malpractices over the years.
The report investigated and documented irregularities that characterized the conduct of the 2020 WASSCE by WAEC.
With a review of relevant literature on previous WAEC examinations’ reports in Ghana, the report further discusses the root causes, symptoms, and effects of WAEC’s perennial examination malpractices in Ghana, and recommends policy and administrative remedies to improve the conduct of examinations in Ghana and beyond.
The 2020 WASSCE Report by Africa Education Watch mentioned general exam malpractices and called for the prosecution of implicated WAEC Officials to deter others.
“Furthermore, the fact that all questions leaked unto the social media platforms at the dawn before the exam (the very time questions are transported from the WAEC depots) lends some credence to WAEC’s position that questions leaked when they were in the custody of the GES/Ghana Police after they have left their custody (strong rooms). This corroborates a June 2014 police investigative report which cited Lance Corporal Prince Opoku for complicity in leaking examination papers when detailed to escort WAEC examination materials from Konongo depot to examination centres at Asiwa” the report partly said.
Speaking to Citi News, the Head of Legal at WAEC, Rev. Victor Brew, said, although he couldn’t give full details on the cases, he could confirm that one person has been picked up by the police in relation to the leakage of examiners’ contact details.
“Talking about investigations into the leaked examiners’ list, we actually had engaged the CID unit to handle the matter. Somebody has been picked up, others are being investigated and of course, with issues of investigation of this nature, it is a matter in the nature of security and so you will not expect me to tell all the details of what we have done, so I think it is fair to indicate that investigations have commenced and are still ongoing, somebody has been picked up, and so let’s see how it goes.”
Background
The 2020 WASSCE for the first batch of Free Senior High School (SHS) students was marred by a lot of controversies. Some persons circulated the yet-to-be-written WASSCE papers on social media, with many alleging it was an attempt to ensure that the first batch of Free SHS beneficiaries passed.
The details of some examiners of WAEC were released, whiles some invigilators were also manhandled by some students, who allegedly engaged in exam malpractice.
WAEC punches holes into Africa Education Watch’s 2020 WASSCE report
Meanwhile, the West African Examinations Council has discredited portions of the 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) report released by Africa Education Watch.
The Council says portions of the report that touched on the leakage of a mathematics paper and the widespread details of examiners and the methodology itself are fraught with inaccuracies.
In an interview with Citi News, the Head of WAEC’s Legal department, Rev. Victor Brew, said, “There are a number of inaccuracies in this report that was launched by Africa Education Watch, and we are prepared to speak to these factual inaccuracies. For example, the mention of the leakage of the Mathematics paper in the 2020 WASSCE, and the fact that WAEC had not done much to deal with the matter is not true. It is not true that we did not do anything about the purported leakage.”
