Education and Management Expert, Mr. Nii Armah Addy has backed calls for the establishment of a parallel examination body aside from the West African Examination Council (WAEC). Mr. Addy intimated that a rival examination will mean that parents and students will have an option to choose which body’s examination to take. He added that a rival examination body will force WAEC to get its act right.
The Educationist made these comments when he spoke to Samuel Mbura, the host of A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show. He was speaking on the back of a report released by Education Think Tank, Africa Education Watch (EDU WATCH) which suggested that out of the twenty 2021 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) papers sampled, 55 percent leaked within 10 hours before the start of the exam, with one practical paper leaking 5 days earlier.
“The monopoly seems to disadvantage many people. Where this monopoly disadvantages many people then it is not fair. Education segregation is not good for people where others get an undue advantage over other people when they are all supposed to be assessed by the same thing. Yes, I support it that there should be a parallel examination body,” he explained.
Mr. Addy called on WAEC to admit that there are issues within their examination structure as this admittance will allow for conversations around bettering the system to begin. He said it is rather unfortunate that WAEC has always postured itself as ‘holier than thou’. “When the issue happened that there was malpractice, straight away, all those papers should be cancelled. But the argument, on the contrary, is that if you cancel those papers, what of those who did not see the paper? So this brings us to effective monitoring and evaluation which WAEC has failed time and again,” he stressed.
Mr. Addy said that should further independent investigations prove that there were indeed leaks, then the entire staffing body of WAEC must be sacked immediately.
Meanwhile, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) is calling on the education think tank, Africa Education Watch, to provide further details on its claims of exam malpractice in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). The Public Relations Officer of WAEC, Agnes Teye Cudjoe noted that a number of the schools cited in EduWatch’s report were not in operation or did not partake in the WASSCE.
A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHz| Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
