WAEC: Educationist Dismisses Calls By Private Schools For Exams Body To Be Scrapped

• Calls by private schools for WAEC to be scrapped have been described as needless
• According to Educationist Nii Armah Addy, while calls for the exams body to be scrapped are misplaced, there are changes that are critical
• The CSJ fellow also called for an accreditation regime that will allow other examination bodies to be set up to compete with WAEC

Educationist Nii Armah Addy has said calls by the private schools for the West African Examination Council (WAEC) to be scrapped are misplaced.

The fellow of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), a think tank, said while there are genuine challenges with examinations conducted by the WAEC, a review of Ghana's entire examination system was critical.

"To say that WAEC be scrapped is a big ask," he told YEN.com.gh in an exclusive interview.

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He said what Ghana needed was accreditation for other bodies to organise examinations that can qualify students to enter the tertiary level or the next level of their education.

"As it stands now, it looks like WAEC is the only accredited body that organises the secondary school examination for the university level. Apart from those who attend the private international schools who usually write the foreign examinations like Cambridge, it is WAEC that organises these important examinations," he said.

His comments follow agitations by the Ghana National Council for Private Schools (GNACOPS), which regulates the activities of thousands of member schools, against WAEC.

GNACOPS said the council has outlived its usefulness.

The National Executive Director for GNACOPS, Kwesi Enoch Nana Gyetuah, said the rigid examination regime of the WAEC was not consistent with modern tenets of education.

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But the CSJ Educationist said just like the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), the monopoly is too much.

"If the capacity to organise these exams are open to other institutions, it will improve competition. Healthy competition inures to the benefit of the consumer. Because then students will now be able to choose which examination to write and that probably will make WAEC sit up," he told YEN.com.gh.

According to Mr Addy, WAEC is already on its way to becoming obsolete with the new curriculum that the Ghana Education Service (GES) plans to introduce.

Law School Examination Leakage Is Due To Ghana’s Poor Education Policy Planning

In a previous story, YEN.com.gh reported that Nii Armah Addy also put forth the cause of the constant leak of exam questions at the Ghana School of Law.

He said because the system deliberately wants to get rid of thousands of students due to lack of space, students have also been compelled to use unconventional methods to pass.

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He blamed all the problems in legal education in Ghana on poor education policy planning by people at the helm of education affairs of the country.

Source: YEN.com.gh