Dr. Benjamin Otchere-Ankrah, Governance Lecturer at the Central University, has condemned the leakage of West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) examination questions to students.
Speaking on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', Dr. Otchere-Ankrah reprimanded officials of the West African Examination Council (WAEC) over such culture where students get the questions ahead of the exams stressing it's about time the WAEC officials, who engage in such activities, are found and sanctioned to deter others.
He explained such "recklessness and greed" of the officials puts the school children in traumatizing conditions, particularly when the leaked questions result in the cancellation of the results of the affected students or schools.
''The security agencies have the means to track the first person who sent that. They have the means of checking all those things. Let's investigate it well and sanction the offenders," he said.
Dr. Otchere-Ankrah also bemoaned examinations in general saying, "exams is not a good thing. It's not a good means of assessment because some people have passed exams but can't put what he passed into practice . . . Im not saying passing exams is bad but it shouldn't be the only yardstick''.
Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana
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I am an adherent listener of Kokrokoo. There are a few things that bothers me on this Exams rescheduling by WAEC. They did not cancel the papers but rescheduled them. So WAEC made an effort to stop the problem. Also, people talk as if WAEC as an organisation officially leak the papers. That is absurd. Now, I think the issue of Ashesi was dealt with by Prof Agyekum yesterday. It is a small university like a course in most of the public universities so you can easily control them. WAEC deals with close to a million students. Now the supply chain for delivery of the exams is not like a department in an university that one lecturer can keep the papers in his office and bring it to the exam hall. Even that there are leakages and other malpractices with grades. The issue is about the integrity of the people. The police exams leaks, the system of recruitment in to any of the security services has been found wanting. Do we have to close down all these institutions? Now even exams at the theological seminaries use invigilators!!! Even the potential pastors etc are found wanting. The solution is not about new organisation or name change but the integrity of the Ghanaian. All these institutions are manned by Ghanaians. Thank you.
My thinking about this whole mess has been the exam in itself. The people in charge of every facet of the African life are lazy. Examinations should not, I repeat, should not be given this high values treatment at the expense of formative and authentic assessment. But Joe could that be done? Ther average teacher has 70 students and therefore has no means of conducting a cumulative, authentic assessment of their students. Therefore we result to mass examinations to determine what students learned over 36 months in just 3 hours. What happens to the student who falls stuck during the exam? Or even if you have a bad emotional breakdown during the exam? You're left with no means of documenting your learning. What a crude system