More Rot Uncovered In 2023 WASSCE
…As Kwami Alorvi Exposes WAEC, Enyan Community SHS
A former president of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Kwame Alorvi, has exposed the West African Examination Council (WAEC) for failure to deplore enough officers to effectively supervise the ongoing 2023 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), leading to the widespread of exam malpractices.
According to Alorvi, contrary to claims by WAEC that they had deployed specially trained monitoring agents to monitor the exercise, the situation on the ground proves otherwise, as officials supervising the exam are inadequate and overstretched.
In his latest write-up, sighted by The Anchor, the former NAGRAT president wondered whether WAEC has even up to 300 agents to monitor the 834 examination centres across the country.
“Where are the specially trained monitoring agents, WAEC? If they are deployed, why is it that only one of your officials is deployed to Ajumako to monitor about seven public schools, in addition to the private schools? Well, if you have these specially trained agents, kindly dispatch more of them to assist your overstretched official at Ajumako to monitor the schools in order to halt the malpractices,” he said.
According to him, “the claim of specially trained agents available to monitor the schools is in contrast with the reality on the ground. I am not sure WAEC has even up to three hundred (300) agents to monitor the 834 examination centres across the country.”
He also revealed how some unscrupulous invigilators in the connivance with subject teachers in a school in the Central Region engaged in massive exam malpractice by writing work-out answers on white marker boards in the examination halls for candidates to copy.
Below Is Published, The Full Write-Up:
KWAMI ALORVI ASKS: WAEC, WHY HAVE THE EXAMINATION MALPRACTICES IN ENYAN MAIM COMMUNITY SHS NOT SHOWED UP ON YOUR RADAR?
- INTRODUCTION
Enyan Maim Community Senior High School is one of the Excellent Block (E-Block) schools located in the Ajumako-Essiam-Enyan District of the Central Region of Ghana. Our research team has discovered to our shock that since the start of the 2023 WASSCE, the Assistant Headmaster in charge of the supervision of the WASSCE has led his team of invigilators to engage in examination malpractices at the blind side of the West African Examinations Council.
- MODE OF OPERATION
As soon as the examination papers are distributed to the candidates, a copy of the excess is smuggled out to the subject teachers to work out solutions to the questions. In other instances, snapshots of the questions are taken by invigilators and sent out to the subject teachers to work out the answers. The worked-out answers are then sent back to the invigilators either on the phone or by photocopy to be written on white marker boards in the examination halls for candidates to copy. Students and invigilators take mobile phones to the examination halls. Elective Mathematics, English Language, Government, Food and Nutrition, Cost Accounting, and a host of other papers went through this fraudulent practice.
Our team has discovered that unlike the other schools that wait until the end of the WASSCE to share the booty of moneys collected from the examination candidates, the corrupt subject teachers who work out the solutions to the questions are instantly rewarded with cash payment after each paper has been written. The motivation to cheat is thus high.
What is not certain is whether the Headmistress of the school, Ms. Helena Sarpong Asamoah is aware of the collection of the money and thus condoning the examination malpractices, or she is just not in control of affairs in the school. It is very clear that if these malpractices are not halted, we need no prophet or soothsayer to tell us that the remaining papers are bound to suffer the same fate.
- PRACTICAL CHALLENGES ON THE GROUND
The fundamental reason for Enyan Maim Community Senior High School candidates having this unfettered access to answers copied on marker boards for them is that since the start of the 2023 WASSCE, no WAEC official has ever stepped foot in the school for monitoring during the written papers.
The challenge is that there is only one WAEC official stationed at the Ajumako Depot. This official is in charge of four public Senior High Schools in the District (located in Bisease, Enyan Denkyera, Enyan Maim, and Mando), and three others in Ekumfi District, (T. I. Ahmadiyya SHS, Essakyir, J. E. Atta Mills SHS in Otuam and Akyen SHS). These schools are kilometres apart. Enyan Maim SHS is also far from the roadside. Apart from these seven public Senior High Schools, there are other private Senior High Schools in the two districts that must be monitored by the same single WAEC official with no official vehicle at his disposal.
Our team has learnt that the focus of this WAEC official has, all this while, been on the private schools and Bisease Senior High Commercial School which are notoriously noted for examination malpractices with no time left for him for monitoring the other schools under his jurisdiction. Yet WAEC, in a press release dated 8th September 2023 titled “CONDUCT OF WASSCE FOR SCHOOL CANDIDATES 2023” (ref. WAEC/PRO/PRESS/VOL. 4/8) assured the Ghanaian public that “We have thus deployed specially trained monitoring agents in order to increase our presence in more schools across the country.”
Where are the specially trained monitoring agents, WAEC? If they are deployed, why is it that only one of your officials is deployed to Ajumako to monitor about seven public schools in addition to the private schools? Well, if you have these specially trained agents, kindly dispatch more of them to assist your overstretched official at Ajumako to monitor the schools in order to halt the malpractices. The claim of specially trained agents available to monitor the schools is in contrast with the reality on the ground. I am not sure WAEC has even up to three hundred (300) agents to monitor the 834 examination centres across the country.
- ANOTHER INCONSISTENCY BY WAEC
WAEC has accepted in its press release that there were widespread malpractices in the ongoing examination including, but not limited to, collection of money from candidates, impersonation, unauthorised use of mobile phones in the examination halls by both invigilators and candidates, taking snapshots of questions and posting them on various social media handles, writing answers on marker boards for candidates to copy, all of which some of us have drawn its attention to. Yet, WAEC has shown its inconsistency in the press release besides the claim of increasing its presence in more schools. It stated, “We wish to use this opportunity to caution members of the public to refrain from causing unnecessary anxiety among candidates and well-meaning citizens.”
Who are those causing the “unnecessary anxiety”? This is ingratitude to the concerned Ghanaians helping WAEC to uncover the irresponsible behaviours of those in charge of the examinations. Rather than show gratitude to the informants helping it uncover the rot associated with the WASSCE, WAEC is insinuating and crucifying them in order to save its face. As Paul Bamikole once noted, “Ingratitude makes a man an animal, or even worse, because some animals have a way of saying thank you when you do them a favour.”
Our group has constantly informed Mr. Isaac Danso, the Headquarters WAEC official in charge of the 2023 WASSCE, one other retired WAEC official and about four others in active service across the regions, as well as our bosses at the GES Headquarters about the ongoing malpractices through our articles. Is that the “unnecessary anxiety”?
Maybe, we have to agree with WAEC. The “unnecessary anxiety” is among my Voltarian kinsmen who have called me severally to express their worries about why I have concentrated my reports on my own home region (Volta/Oti) when worse malpractices are ongoing in schools in other regions. Don’t students in Volta/Oti compete with students in other regions for admission into tertiary institutions using the same WASSCE results? My response to them has always been that charity begins at home, and that our Ewe culture abhors stealing and dishonesty. Yes, the “unnecessary anxiety” is among my colleague Headmasters who have also signed the performance contract with the GES to produce good WASSCE results. While they toil to achieve this by ensuring effective teaching and learning as well as proper supervision, their counterparts use the shortcut route of cheating to get results better than theirs. Yes, the “unnecessary anxiety” comes when WAEC fails to be proactive and other people have to give them information on the malpractices going on. Indeed, those are the things causing “unnecessary anxiety” among students, teachers, Headmasters, and well-meaning Ghanaians who abide by the rules and not our exposures.
- MY PERSONAL CONVICTION
I want WAEC and the public to know that I’m not a stranger to WAEC. I was an examiner in Geography Paper 1 in the WASSCE and Social Studies in the BECE for many years while teaching at Mfantsipim School. I stopped playing my examiner’s role when I became the President of NAGRAT because I did not have the time to combine my role as an examiner and President of the association. The principles I upheld while working with WAEC still hold. These included the following:
- i) I had once recommended to WAEC the cancellation of the Geography 1 Paper for a particular school when I discovered collusion in the answers provided by students. Per the release issued by WAEC after the exams, the results of that paper were cancelled for the candidates of that school.
- ii) I had also invited the Head of WAEC in charge of Security, one Mr. Badoe (I hope I have the name correct) at WAEC Headquarters, to my school as a Headmaster to dismantle an examination malpractice syndicate operating in the district. Thanks to the information given to me by my school Prefects and their cooperation.
iii) I had at one time returned to WAEC scripts allocated to me for marking after coordination when I realised that some answers in the marking scheme for the Mapwork question were not accurate, but WAEC insisted that the scheme was accepted from coordination in Nigeria and so the answer could not be changed. My conscience could not allow me to accept that the topographical map of Osino plains in the Eastern Region of Ghana with just a small hill was “a mountainous area,” and allow the students I had taught in Mfantsipim School with that same Topo sheet in the Mapwork as a plain to be marked wrong. WAEC returned the scripts to me to mark only after I was told that “Nigeria had accepted” my argument that the area of Osino on the map was a plain and not a mountainous area. That was when WAEC was WAEC with adequate resources, independent without any political interference and manipulation, as we have been experiencing in recent times.
For my team and I, therefore, our work is for God and country. We are not oblivious to the risks involved in the work we are doing by awakening the conscience of the Ghanaian society. We are fully aware that men who ever ventured to awaken society were almost always harmed or even killed. No doubt, the most slaughtered creature in the world is the cockerel. The speech of Martin Luther King Jr., “I have a dream,” terminated his life.
So we are motivated by our forebears who stood for the right thing, though the heavens fell. If we all fail to act, the sanctity of the WASSCE will be gone for good with dire consequences for the future of our youth and Mother Ghana. The WASSCE will suffer from terminal paralysis and be lost to commercialisation and other malpractices. As we have stated severally, we shall not be intimidated to quit or be quiet until the storms become quiet.
We conclude by calling on WAEC and the Ghana Education Service to keep their radars tuned to Enyan Maim Community Senior High School for the remaining papers while still keeping a close eye on Bisease Senior High Commercial School and the private schools.
Dated: Sunday 10th September, 2023.
Source: Anchorghana.com
