President's intervention, sign of father-for-all

Reports of widespread protests and violent reactions by some candidates of the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) over their inability to write the examination as expected must be a cause of concern to all.

It is even more worrying, when some of them either attack staff or invigilators of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) or vandalise school property because the exam officials are not allowing them to engage in exam malpractice.  This must set all of us to think what the future has for us.

For us at the Daily Graphic, the drastic decision by the management of the Ghana Education Service of dismissing and barring 14 of those candidates from writing the ongoing examination, may be severe but it is to send a signal that managers of education in the country will not countenance any gross misconduct during or after the examination.

We also endorse the decision to interdict and bar some teachers who should have known better from invigilating in the exam, awaiting the outcome of investigations into their alleged involvement in those disturbances.

While we patiently await the outcome of the investigations, we however, welcome and laud the swift intervention by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to give the candidates a second chance by allowing them to continue to write the exam. For us at the Daily Graphic, the President’s request is timely, particularly so because of their future.

We acknowledge the implications such a drastic action will have on their future development if they should be denied the opportunity to continue with the exam.
Notwithstanding the request by the President that the students be allowed to write the exam, we believe that all other punitive measures must still hold. This is significant and gives the indication that whatever they did was absolutely wrong and must never be repeated.

Be that as it may, we join the Ghana Education Service (GES), the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and indeed all other well-meaning Ghanaians to condemn in no uncertain terms such gross indiscipline, criminal acts and dangerous development rearing their ugly heads in our school system.

We believe this trend must be stopped immediately. It is sickening and indeed, embarrassing to see and hear the candidates demonstrate and openly complain that the invigilators or the WAEC staff are not allowing them to engage in malpractice.

Reports of candidates engaged in the demonstration and gross indiscipline at the ongoing WASSCE abound – Bright SHS at Kukurantumi in the Eastern Region, Ndewura Jakpa SHTS at Domango in the North East Region and Tweneboah Kodua SHS at Kumawu and Juaben SHS, both in the Ashanti Region, Battor SHS in the Volta Region, and Sekondi College in the Western Region.

Since when has examination malpractice been legalised such that when students are not allowed to engage in it, they demonstrate? This is a big shame to all those involved!

The action of the candidates can be equated to someone carrying contraband goods and the police insist that they would not allow the bearer to pass with the items and yet he or she goes openly demonstrating.

Equally unacceptable acts at the centres are the unprofessional activities by some invigilators and school authorities who encourage their candidates to engage in examination malpractice and obstruct WAEC officials from ensuring that the examination is carried out smoothly and free of malpractice.

A typical example can be cited at the Bright Senior High School at Kukurantumi in the Eastern Region where the proprietor of the school is said to have incited candidates of the school, which is one of the centres for the exam, to attack, assault and make away with personal belongings of a WAEC official and a journalist with the Daily Graphic, who were both at the centre to carry out their legitimate duties.

The Daily Graphic demands that not only should the centre be closed down as stated by  WAEC but the proprietor of the school, the teachers and the entire student body be sanctioned to serve as a deterrent to others nursing similar acts.

We stand with the GES in its efforts to maintain discipline in our schools.

The examination needs to be conducted in a conducive environment devoid of malpractice in order not to undermine the credibility and integrity of the certificates awarded after the examination.

The implications of such malpractice have dire consequences on not only these particular candidates, but the country as a whole and we, as a nation must jealously guard the integrity we have attained not only in the sub-region, but the entire Africa and indeed the world.