WAEC denies allegation it ‘marked down’ private JHSs BECE scripts

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) following the release of the Basic Education Certificate Examination results says it did not mark down private Junior High School (JHS) student’s BECE scripts as widely speculated.

The Council’s comment comes after the Ghana National Council for Private Schools (GNACOPS) alleged that WAEC management prioritised marking of public Junior High Schools BECE scripts over their colleagues in the private sector.

Expressing his outfit’s dissatisfaction on the Citi Breakfast show, Obengfo Gyetuah said the West African Examinations Council deliberately marked down private schools to give public schools an advantage in school placement.

“Most of the private school students have been marked down, and we are calling for re-marking and even calling for an independent body to go into that. There’s even discrimination in the aspect of the school placement,” he stated.

Enoch added, “30% placement has been allocated to public students which means that if we write the same exam, and I am coming from a public school, I will be placed before someone from a private school despite the grades we have

If you look at the trend, you will realize that we have an enrolment of about 40% at Class 6, but as they transit to JHS, the number reduces drastically because parents have realized there is a 30% allocation to public schools.”

But a spokeswoman for WAEC, Agnes Teye Cudjoe reacting to Enoch Kwasi Gyetuah’s allegation in an interview monitored by Thisterm.com said the wild allegations raised by the Director of GNACOPS lack evidence and proof.

“I am a bit surprised by the allegations by GNACOPS because the BECE scripts of public or private schools are not marked differently. We do not have different index numbers for private and public schools,” Agnes Cudjoe stated.

Explaining the making process of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for School and Private candidates scripts, the WAEC spokesperson said scripts only have candidates’ names and index numbers, not their school names.

“We have over 10,000 WAEC examiners who mark the BECE School scripts so how do you get these examiners together and tell them that these are the list of private schools marked down differently from public schools

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) is a credible institution and I don’t think we will go that mile to mark private schools’ BECE papers down,” the official of the not-for-profit-making organization (WAEC) said in the interview.