Name and shame officials involved in WASSCE leakages – Nortsu-Kotoe tells WAEC

Ranking Member on Parliament’s Education Committee, Peter Notsu-Kotoe, has charged the West African Examination Council (WAEC) to name and shame officials involved in the leakage of test papers.

According to him, this is one of the most feasible ways of halting the perineal malpractices which affect the integrity of the West African Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

“When you [WAEC] do the investigations, name and shame the culprits so that it can deter others from engaging in such activities.”

His comments come as calls reignite over the need for measures to check the canker as fresh cases of malpractices are uncovered in the ongoing process.

WAEC, on Wednesday, confirmed that Elective Mathematics and English Language papers have been compromised in this year’s examination.

Addressing stakeholders, Head of Test Administration at WAEC, George Ohene-Mantey, said portions of the papers were found to have been circulated before the examination as “the ‘cheating’ social media groups were in full swing.”

“After the administration of the tests, careful scrutiny of the several versions received indicates extracts of parts of the questions for Mathematics (Elective) 2 and Section ‘A’ of English Language 2 were circulated on some social media platforms,” he said.

The sub-regional examination management body indicated that its “monitoring revealed that the circulation of numerous versions, both printed and handwritten on most of the groups earlier,” the Council further explained in a statement.

But this is not enough to remedy the situation in the view of some stakeholders.

Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, has called for breaking WAEC’s monopoly over the administration of tests across the country.

But Peter Nortu-Kotoe disagrees with this position in the short term. He believes there are measures including the support of stakeholders to enhance the integrity of test results.

“In the interim, I say it will not augur well for us because, are we going to engage international examination bodies or create local examination bodies,” the Akatsi North MP said on Thursday.

Another option proffered has been the test serialisation system of questions for candidates.

While touring some senior high schools in Accra, Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum said the innovation will generate multiple questions in sets of five to 10 such that different schools receive different questions in a randomised fashion.

But the Ranking Member on the Education Committee of Parliament insists that the system can breed candidates’ mistrust in WAEC.

The Akatsi North MP explained that although he sees the importance of such a proposal, “we live in an environment where if the questions are serialised, one school may accuse WAEC of giving easier questions to another school.”

Meanwhile, Africa Education Watch has petitioned the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) over alleged leakages