Fallout from WASSCE leak... Two teachers, candidate grabbed
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) is making some headway in its attempt to unravel the source of the examination leak in the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), following the arrest of two teachers and a candidate at the Opoku Ware Girls Senior High School (SHS) centre at Esereso, a suburb of Kumasi.
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The Headmaster of the Ascension SHS, Mr Ekow Quashie, was picked up last Thursday together with the Literature in English teacher of the school, Ms Esther Boakyewaa, and a female candidate.
They are currently helping the WAEC Police in Kumasi with investigations, while one of the teachers, Mr Collins Yeboah, is on the run.
Mr Yeboah is said to have forwarded the answered Literature in English questions to Ms Boakyewaa, who copied them out on pieces of paper and gave them to the female candidate to pass on to candidates of Ascension SHS, a private SHS in the region.
How they were arrested
Briefing the Daily Graphic in a telephone interview, the Branch Controller of WAEC in the Ashanti Region, Mr Alex Bosompem, said while the Literature in English candidates were writing that paper, a police officer on duty at the centre spotted one of the candidates dropping some pieces of paper in the examination hall where candidates from the school were writing the paper.
The police officer, according to Mr Bosompem, rushed to the scene only to realise that the pieces of paper that the female candidate had dropped were answers to the questions of the paper the candidates were writing.
“When the female candidate involved was apprehended by the police officer, she confessed that the Literature in English teacher of the Ascension SHS gave the papers to her to be given to the school’s candidates.
“When Esther was confronted, she revealed that it was Collins who forwarded the answered questions to her phone. But we could not trace him because he ran away,” he told the Daily Graphic.
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Search on headmaster
Mr Bosompem revealed that the candidate and the teacher were taken to the headmaster of the school, who was also picked up and when a search was conducted on him, they found a mobile phone which had answered questions in various subjects.
“So all the three were brought to our office where our police kept them in custody, while efforts are being made to track down the fourth person,” he said.
He said when WAEC officials took the mobile phone of the headmaster they realised that he was chatting with someone who was demanding that the headmaster pay him before he could forward the questions of the other subjects to him.
Mr Bosompem said when the headmaster was asked who he was chatting with, he said he did not know the person but he always communicated with him via the WhatsApp platform and that the person in question operated from Accra.
Breakthrough
Mr Bosompem described the arrest as a breakthrough because he believed the source that forwarded the questions to the headmaster would be tracked down.
“If by Monday the headmaster does not disclose the identity of the person, we will forward them to Accra where they would be handed over to the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI),” he said.
He advised candidates to stop banking their hopes on information on social media because most of them were fake and might even land them in trouble.
“Candidates must take their studies seriously and stop looking elsewhere for prepared answers. Hard work pays and this has always been my advice to all candidates,” Mr Bosompem said.
On bail
He, however, said the two teachers and the candidate had been released on bail but were to report to the police on Monday, April 11, 2016, while investigations continued.
Impact on the arrest
Mr Bosompem said it was unfortunate that a female candidate was caught up in the web, “But we cannot do anything because she allowed herself to be used.”
He, however, said WAEC had almost concluded its investigations with the female candidate and blamed her for loitering around the exams centre when she had no paper to write that day.
Mr Bosompem also said the affected candidate had not missed any of her papers and conceded that she could be affected emotionally but WAEC could not do anything about that.
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Touching on Ms Boakyewaa, the female teacher, he said she had flouted the rules governing the examination and that the Ghana Education Service (GES) would handle that aspect.