Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Friday, June 19, 2015
The National
Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has called for the resignation of the
Very Rev. Sam Nii Nmai Ollennu, Head of the Ghana National Office of the West
African Examinations Council (WAEC) following the leakage and subsequent
cancellation of some Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) papers.
The association also
suggested the dissolution of the entire WAEC Board.
Ghanaians were on
Wednesday hit with disturbing news of a massive leakage of five of the ongoing
BECE subject papers and WAEC immediately took responsibility for the lapse and
announced the cancellation of the affected subjects which would have to be
re-written by the students.
The canceled papers were:
English Language 2, Religious and Moral Education 2, Integrated Science 2,
Mathematics 2 and Social Studies 2.
WAEC Admission
Deputy
Director of Public Affairs of WAEC, Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, admitted in a statement
that it was ‘dismayed’ and ‘disappointed’ that the papers had been compromised
and explained that it had to cancel the papers in order to protect the integrity of the
examination.
The council is
presently being investigated by the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).
Investigation
In the ensuing
confusion, NAGRAT is blaming WAEC for the leakage and insisted it was necessary
for the Rev. Ollennu to step aside because his continuous presence as the
Council’s head will influence the investigation process.
At a news conference
in Accra yesterday, Angel Kabonu, vice-President of NAGRAT said “When papers
leak and the questions are on the internet, whatsApp and students could email
them, then we will have to ask ourselves the question ‘where is it coming
from’, definitely it is coming from WAEC”.
In NAGRAT’s view that
WAEC let down Ghanaian teachers and students by failing to “bring WAEC up to
speed with 21st century virtual securities.”
“We need to get
beyond announcing the leakage and cancelling papers and really get into a
process of house cleaning at WAEC, they really need to clean their house
because clearly, individuals within that organisation are causing these
leakages.”
WAEC is untouchable
According to NAGRAT, “WAEC
is able to afford these unpardonable in inefficiencies because of the monopoly
it enjoys.”
“It is clear that whether their services are
good or not and whether we like them or not, they are the only one we have.
WAEC has become an untouchable bully that pushes bad services down our throat
while no one dare questions them.”
NAGRAT admitted that
“some pupils, students, teachers and indeed anybody could be culpable for
leakages” but added that it is certain that “most of the leakages take their
source from WAEC itself.”
“It is unfortunate
that WAEC staff are highly insulated and hardly suffer any serious penalties
from their wrong doings.” They added that any WAEC official, teacher or pupil
who is found culpable must be dealt with according to the law.”
Rippling effect
“the results that
students churn out is a reflection of our competence or otherwise and if people
are adamant to our call…because our call does not stem from only what has
happened this year, we have series of historical developments that we will
present to the table, if that is not done we will have to reconsider our
relationship with that examination body.
“Don’t forget the
questions are from us, the assessment and marking of the examination is from
us, we invigilate the examination and without us the examination cannot go on,”
NAGRAT said.
The June
2015 BECE started only on Monday, June 15 and was expected to be completed on
today. Some 438,030 candidates were
registered to partake in the examinations in 1,446 centres across the length
and breadth of the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment