Exams malpractices curbed due to serialization of questions – MoE

The introduction of the serialisation of questions for International and national examinations conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has addressed the incidence of examination malpractices in the country.

Speaking to journalists, the Education Minister said his directive to the West African Examination Council (WAEC) in the past three years to adopt questions serialisation, with which they complied, had curbed examination leakages.

“If you want to say that you have the questions and you have gotten them leaked to you, you don’t know which examination centre has that question, so parents are not buying, students are not interested, and they are focusing on studying,” he said.

In collaboration with the WAEC, he said a number of measures, including, “serialisation and randomization” of examination questions, were introduced to address the reoccurring examination question leakages in the country.

Dr Adutwum said his outfit and the not-for-profit-making organization had scaled the initiative up to the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) to sanitise the system from any unhealthy examination practices.

“The Ministry will in 2025 look at how to do serialisation within the classroom so that student A, who is seated here, will have different questions from student B, who is seated in the same classroom, ” Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum told the media.

The Minister in Charge of Education during his visit at a BECE centre also hinted that his outfit is considering e-testing for the next conduct of the International and national examinations conducted by the Examinations Council in the country.

The Minister for Education said he is convinced that the e-testing would eventually lead to a computer selecting a set of questions for every prospective candidate to help prevent examination malpractices in the country.

Dr Adutwum pledged the Ministry’s preparedness to continue collaborating with the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and other stakeholders towards winning the fight against examination malpractice in the country.

A total of 569,095 candidates representing 282,648 males and 286,447 females from 19,506 private and public Junior High Schools will sit for the BECE for School to start on Monday, July 8, and end on Monday, July 15, 2024.

Regarding BECE for Private Candidates, the West African Examinations Council in a statement sighted by Thisterm.com said about 1,366 candidates, comprising 735 males and 631 females are expected to participate in the examination.