WAEC moves to end exam leakages by introducing different set of questions

Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, the Minister of Education, says Senior High School students will soon write different set of questions in their final year examinations. 

Dr Adutwum said the decision was aimed at ending the recurrent leakage of examination questions and other malpractices at various centres at the Senior High School (SHS) level. 

He said this at the Eighth Baraka Policy Institute (BPI) annual public lecture in Accra on the theme: “Towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals on education: Tackling socio-economic forces against progress in Ghana”.
“This year, I give credit to WAEC. During the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), they gave different examination questions to every centre, therefore, there were no leakages.” 

He said he had met with Ministers of Education of various countries under the West African Examination Council (WAEC) to replicate the system for WASSCE students, not only in Ghana but in the West African sub-region. 

Dr Adutwum said: “I charge WAEC to begin what is called serialisation, creating parallel test so that in the exams room, students may have different questions but same level of difficulty.” 

The Minister urged the Ghana Education Service (GES) to adopt a system that would give support to students to move away from memorising and help them to improve and pass subjects, which they had difficulties with. 

“In other jurisdictions, if you can’t write, you’ll have a writing course till you pass… because they’ll give you intervention. In the same way, if students come to junior high school and they can’t read, our education system should understand, and GES should also know that you don’t give those students nine subjects.”  

He said the Government would not renege on its quest to change the fortunes of the country through education, noting that many reforms had been done to make education relevant and support national development. 

“Our current education agenda is to change Ghana through education and we’re on track. We’re going to move up and people will wonder how it happened,” Dr Adutwum said. 

The Minister encouraged all levels of educational institutions “to see themselves as recycling plants. So, if garbage comes in, they [the students] must get out as a refined product and fit for purpose, otherwise, don’t allow them to come out.” 

Mr Salem Kalmoni, the President of BPI, said access to quality education served as a “powerful catalyst of personal development and social mobility”.  

He said: “It is through education that the son of a laborer can become a doctor or engineer. It is through education that the daughter of trotro driver can be a lawyer, an architect, a scholar or a minister.” 

Kalmoni, however, noted that it would require that every child was given the opportunity and access to the type of education that would enable them to attain social mobility, and pledged the Institute’s support through policy suggestions.