WASSCE Results: Mahama Got It Wrong- Minister

Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, has stated that former President John Dramani Mahama was wrong in his assertion that the remarkable results of this year’s West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) students were due to cheating.

Mr. Mahama said, “In many places, they let the children cheat. You go to places and the teachers are conniving with the students to cheat. The effect will be seen later.”

However, the minister has since rebutted the accusation of cheating, asserting that the ex-President apparently received limited information on the WASSCE results prior to his public outburst.

“The briefing [he received] is limited. I think that when you are running for office, you should be briefed, and I am willing to brief him. And let him know that there is WASSCE, and Ghanaians are doing well, and we will continue to do so,” the minister stated at a news conference in Accra on Wednesday.

According to Dr. Adutwum, evidence suggests that Ghana’s WASSCE test scores have improved since the Akufo-Addo government implemented the Free Senior High School programme.

 

No WASSCE

The Education Minister denied allegations made by Mr. Mahama, who is running for president again, that Ghana is no longer part of WASSCE.

“If anybody tells you there is no WASSCE, ask the West Africa Examination Council. You are the media people, ask WAEC whether Ghana is still part of WASSCE and they will say yes.

“Ghana is still part of WASSCE and a year ago, two of the top three students of WASSCE, which is for the whole West Africa, were Ghanaian students.

“They were from St. James Senior High School in Sunyani. If we are not part of the WASSCE how did we get two of our students topping the WASSCE?” the minister quizzed.

 

Data Comparison

Dr. Adutwum said in 2006, average score of the core subjects was 38.73% which dropped to 37.9% in 2007, prompting an intervention by former President John Agyekum Kufuor with the introduction of the four-year Senior High School.

“So there were three years where graduates from the four-year intervention came out, and the first one was in 2011, second in 2012 and third in 2013. That ended the four-year high school education.

“Then the three-year high school began again in 2014. The average then was 39.66%. The average dropped from the four-year high school of 64.68% to a low of 39.66% in 2014.

“That is when another batch of three years of our graduates began. Then it went up a bit to 38.97 and that is the record and data from the West Africa Examination Council,” he explained.

He reiterated that performance began to improve from 2018 to 2019 with the introduction of Free Senior High School.

“Even though Free SHS was not fully implemented then, interventions were implemented for those who were not on the Free Senior High School programme,” he pointed out.

“In 2023, the average is 69.73. This is the evidence of what Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has been able to do for the good people of Ghana,” he stated.

 

Results Cancellation

Regarding allegations of result cancellation, the minister stated that this was not a new occurrence in the previous WASSCE, noting that in 2023, just 0.81% of one or more subjects were cancelled by the West Africa Examination Council.

“It is not like it used to be. I don’t want to equalise in terms of malpractices, but I want to set the record straight.

“I also want people to understand that we at the Ministry of Education are doing something about malpractices. Those of you in the media were aware of examination leakages of the BECE many years ago,” he said.

He added, “The last three years, how did it happen that there were no leaks? We worked with WAEC to introduce what is called serialisation or randomisation of questions.”

“The first three years ago, different regions randomised questions and that ended the leakages. And we know if you buy any question what is going to happen to you is that it may not be a question for your region.

“The last two years, we have had a great deal to randomise students at different examination centres.

“So if you were to get any question leaked to you and you were going to be at Lartebiokorshie and get a question from Osu.

“That ended the leakage of the examination questions market. And WAEC has done a good job on that,” the minister explained.

He revealed, “We are now going on a journey to randomise the WAEC exams to make sure even within a room I can sit next to somebody and our questions are different. How do you cheat?”

Source: Ernest Kofi Adu