Accra, March 28, GNA- Mr Peter Anti, the Executive Director, Institute for Education Studies, says supervisors and invigilators of the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) are as liable as students for examination malpractices.
He said WAEC should publish the names of invigilators who supervised schools where the results of students were cancelled and withheld for examination malpractices to serve as a lesson to others.
Mr Anti was speaking to the Ghanan News Agency in Accra on the release of the 2021 Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) results.
WAEC in February 2022 released the provisional 2021 BECE results to aid the school placement of candidates.
The examination body cancelled the results of 138 candidates for either importing foreign materials into the examination hall or colluding with other candidates and annulled the entire results of 46 other candidates for sending mobile phones into the examination hall and for impersonation.
The subject results of 148 candidates and the entire results of 109 candidates have also been withheld, pending the conclusion of investigations into various cases of alleged examination malpractice.
Responding to the results, Mr Anti noted that students had always been blamed for instances of malpractice during examination when their supervisors too should be culpable for such infractions.
He said Ghana’s educational transition rate from Junior High School to Senior High had improved due to the computerised placement system and could not understand why students indulged in examination malpractices.
Mr Anti pointed out that though the level of malpractice in the 2021 BECE examination was low compared to previous years, there was still the need for the authorities to measures to limit its occurrence.
To address the issue, he urged parents to desist from buying examination questions for their wards.
They should encourage their wards to study and build their strengths and appealed to teachers to stop, aiding students to get good grades.
He also advised school owners, who employed illegal means to acquire examination questions for their candidates to project the image of their educational institutions to stop the practice because it affected the student’s career development.
Mr Peter Korda, the Head of Public Relations, Ghana National Association of Teachers, called for extra vigilance on the part of the invigilators to stem malpractices during examinations.
Mr Kofi Asare, the Executive Director Eduwatch Africa, an NGO, said he had received complaints concerning disagreements with the cancelled results of students and held the belief that WAEC would not be able to address the issue due to potential conflict of interest.
He called for an independent body to investigate the concerns of students involved in examination irregularities and set and enforce standards for all examining bodies, including WAEC.
Source: Ghana News Agency