Dissolve WAEC Board — NAGRAT
The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has called for the dissolution of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) Board, following the leak of questions for five subjects in the ongoing Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
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In addition, it said the Head of the Ghana Office of WAEC, Reverend Samuel Nii Nmai Ollennu, should be made to step aside while investigations were conducted into the leak.
Security
The President of NAGRAT, Mr Christian Addai-Opoku, who made the call at a press conference in Accra yesterday, noted that the board members had failed to educate WAEC staff on the dictates of 21st century virtual security systems.
“They must go because they have failed teachers, parents, our children and the nation. We all trusted them and handed a major determinant for the future of our children to them, but they failed [us],” he said.
He suggested that the government should not leave the investigation of the issue to WAEC and welcomed the government’s move to involve the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) in investigations into the issue.
Action
Mr Addai-Poku said anyone found culpable in the leak should not be spared, “whether the person is a teacher or a WAEC staff”, adding that NAGRAT would be closely monitoring the outcome of the investigations.
He also said the monopoly that WAEC enjoyed as the sole examining body at the junior and senior high school levels should be re-examined and urged the government to encourage and promote the creation of alternative examination bodies, as was the case in other countries, including the United Kingdom.
“We believe this will help promote the integrity of our examinations and certificates,” he added.
Candidates
Mr Addai-Poku said the cancellation of those papers was traumatic for most of the candidates. He, therefore, advised that they be counselled before they write the cancelled papers.
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“Let us mobilise them and take them through counselling and psyche them to boldly confront the difficult days ahead.
“Parents and other stakeholders must do their best to encourage these children to confidently face the days ahead,” he stressed.
He described the performances of WAEC over the years as shambolic, adding that this year’s West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) was not spared irregularities when a paper for 2016 WASSCE was administered ahead of schedule and outside the syllabus.
Stakeholder
NAGRAT, he said, as a teachers’ union and major stakeholder in education, was worried about the trauma that pupils, students, parents and teachers went through in the event of the cancellation of the papers, pointing out that “the stress involved in preparing to rewrite a paper that has just been written is an ordeal everyone abhors.”
“Very high transportation and out-of-station costs are incurred anytime examinations have to be written. In all such instances, WAEC pays no compensation to the negatively affected people,” he added.
Cancellation/rewrite
WAEC on Wednesday cancelled the written papers for five subjects in the ongoing BECE. They are Paper 2 of English Language; Religious and Moral Education; Integrated Science; Mathematics and Social Studies.
That followed the discovery that those papers had leaked, thereby compromising the integrity of the papers.
The leaked papers have been rescheduled for June 29 and 30, 2015, according to a statement issued by WAEC.
The BNI has taken over investigations into the leak.