The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has begun full scale investigations into alleged examination malpractices that took place a the JT Cluster of Schools at Mataheko in Accra during this year’s Basic Education Examination (BECE).
This follows the release of a video by etvghana, a private television station, in which some supervisors and invigilators were said to have engaged in various acts contrary to the rules of the examination.
According to WAEC, if found culpable, the invigilators and supervisors would be barred from manning the council’s examinations and, also reported to the Ghana Education Service (GES) for further action.
In addition, candidates who recGeived assistance from the culprits would have their entire results cancelled.
The Head of Public Affairs of WAEC, Mrs Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, who made this known to the Daily Graphic said the council was appalled by the report of the alleged malpractices.
“It is disturbing and the council is conducting its own investigations. Action will be taken,” she said.
A report, she said would be made to the GES on the matter, since the supervisors and invigilators were staff of the service.
Responding to the issue, the Head of Public Relations of GES, Mr Charles Parker-Allotey said the service could not act unless it received a report from WAEC on the issue.
“We have to get WAEC’s report first before we can take any action because we don’t rely on hearsay. The GES and WAEC work together,” he said.
A total of 391,079 candidates wrote this year’s BECE, which took place for the first time in June.
The candidates came from 11,778 public and private basic schools. They were made up of 209,381 males and 181,698 females and they wrote the examination at 1,378 centres.
The number of candidates for this year represented an increase of 14,215 over last year’s total of 376,859.
The month for writing the examination was changed from April to June to enable final year junior high school (JHS) students to complete basic school syllabus before they wrote the examination.
The change was in response to complaints by parents, students and the public that JHS students very often did not complete the full three terms during their final-year before they sat for the BECE.
The change was also expected to address the problem of payment of third term school fees, since candidates previously completed school in the second term but were billed for the last term of academic year.
The 2013 examination began on June 17 and ended June 24.
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