WAEC set to review WASSCE, BECE & Nov/Dec malpractice penalty

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) as part of an effort to reduce cases of examination malpractices recorded each year has said it will soon review its regulations governing the conduct of both national and international examinations including Nov/Dec.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic newspaper, the Council’s Chairman said the current examination malpractice regulations are “too lenient” hence the need to be reviewed to safeguard the integrity of the West African Exams examinations.

“Some of the rules are too lenient; when someone is barred for three years for cheating, the person can return to write. We can increase the number of years to make students determine whether it is worth the risk,” Mr Essuman said.

Advising parents, guardians and teachers to desist from purchasing questions for the final year students, the WAEC Professor said “We are building individuals who must demonstrate the ability to ensure the integrity of this country,”

“So we have to take issues such as copying or cheating in the examination hall and parents going the extra length to purchase questions for their children, most of which are not even true, very seriously,” the WAEC official told Graphic.

In a related development, Africa Education Watch after WAE serialized this year’s BECE and WASSCE questions to end cheating and leakage says teachers have now come up with a new cheating method to discredit the examination.

In a post sighted by Thisterm.com, the Director of EduWatch, Kofi Asare said some Senior High School teachers now solve the WASSCE questions, transmit via WhatsApp and pay off external supervisors, so students can cheat.

“Prior to 2022, the business was built around selling solved leaked questions before the exam. After our 2020 and 2021 WASSCE monitoring reports, the Minister of Education intervened in 2022 with the BNI/NBI taking over question security and WAEC serializing questions. Question leakages have since become bad business.

As a result, the criminals now concentrate on supervised cheating in exam centres once question packs are opened, and these criminal teachers solve questions, transmit via WhatsApp and pay off external supervisors, so students can cheat,” he said.

A total of 447,204 prospective candidates, made up of 211,834 males and 235,370 females from 975 Senior High Schools (SHSs) sat for the Ghana version of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

This figure indicates an increase of 5.8% compared to the 2022 entry figure of 422,883. The WASSCE took place at 834 centres. A total of 60 subjects, comprising 4 core and 56 electives were made available to candidates to choose from.

A total of 834 supervisors, 2,243 assistant supervisors and 14,907 invigilators as part of measures to ensure a smooth and successful conduct of this year’s examination were tasked to oversee the 2023 WASSCE for School Candidates.

Statistics from the West African Examinations Council made available to Thisterm.com indicated that the Ashanti Region would present the highest number of candidates; 107,061, made up of 51,404 males and 55,657 females.

The Ahafo, Bono and Bono East regions together would have the second-highest number of candidatures of 65,731, comprising 31,341 males and 34,390 females to sit for the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination.

Eastern Region comes third in place with 60,516 candidates – 28,120 males and 32,396 females, while the Central Region, with some of the top second-cycle schools in the country, has 54,084 candidates involving 24,520 males and 29,564 females.