WAEC’s caution to schools timely

Since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the educational calendar globally, Ghana is yet to recover fully from its impact.

The academic year, which used to begin in September and end in July, has been changed since 2021 and the Ghana Education Service (GES) has been compelled to make the academic year begin in January and end in December.

Ghana is yet to revert to the original calendar for the writing of external examinations, even though the rest of the countries that write the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for School Candidates (SCs) have reverted and currently begin their academic year in September and end in July.

In order to revert to the pre-COVID-19 era, when the academic year began in September, Ghana has, since 2022, rolled out a “transitional” calendar,which seeks to gradually return the educational calendar to its original schedule.

In 2022, WAEC had to organise WASSCE for Ghana, even though it explained that the examination was of equal difficulty.

This year too, WAEC will have to set questions for Ghana alone, with Ghana’s timetable for the WASSCE beginning from July 31 to September 26, 2023, instead of June to August.

So while the Ghana (Ghana Only Version) WASSCE will be conducted from Monday, July 31 to September 26, 2023, the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for schools and private candidates will be written simultaneously from Monday, August 7 to Friday, August 11, 2023.

The expectation is that by 2024, Ghana will revert the beginning of the academic year to the original September in order to fall in line with the rest of the West African countries writing the WASSCE.

Consequently, WAEC has announced the opening of the portal for the registration of candidates for the WASSCE for SCs, expected to be closed on Wednesday, April 19, 2023.

The Daily Graphic sees the announcement as timely and urges all schools and remedial schools preparing candidates for the examination to take note of the announcement and act accordingly, so that no candidate will miss out on the examination because his or her school is not able to register him or her.

We also wish to remind school authorities about the caution by WAEC that it is an offence to register students who have not been enrolled in SHS from their first-year through to the third year and do not have the required continuous assessment records.

The caution is not only timeous but also comes as an important notification to guard against enrolling students illegally and collecting money from them because with that the schools will have to forge the 30 per cent continuous assessment score necessary for grading for WASSCE for SCs.

Schools must avoid making any decisions that will rob any student of and truncate his or her academic pursuit.

The WASSCE surely is part of the foundation a student needs to get to the top of the academic ladder and we, therefore, have to guard against any act that may be detrimental to their forward march to the top of the ladder.

It is also important that WAEC has come out with its official registration fee for entry in the seven or eight subjects for the WASSCE for SCs, which is GH¢381.24,  while the fees for practical or oral tests range between GH¢14.50 and GH¢19.50 per practical test.

Most schools take undue advantage of such registration processes to milk parents by charging between GH¢1,200 and GH¢6,750.

Sadly, some of the schools convince parents that the amount includes compromising invigilators, supervisors and security personnel to allow the candidates to cheat during the examination.

The Daily Graphic finds these developments very disturbing, particularly so because we are indirectly telling the young ones that even if they do not study hard, their parents will pay their way through.

Such students will grow up to believe that everything is possible with money, and that they do not need to work hard.

In the end, they will work their way through to secure responsible positions, where they will not be able to function.

Let us instill time-tested values in our children, so that when they grow up, they will not depart from them.