West African Examinations Council International credibility at stake?
Poku Adaa
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has had to cancel and order re-takes of examination papers in the 1984 May-June GCE/SC exams due to an unprecedented spate of thefts and leakages of questions to school pupils. Court suits against the Council filed by aggrieved parents are piling up. Poku Adaa reports:The chronic disease of examination question leakages which plagued Nigeria in 1977 and ruined the lives of over 2000 pupils in Sierra Leone in 1982, has sprung up in Ghana this year and created quite a furore in the country and public outrage has soared to fever-pitch in the past three months.
Following the discovery of mass leakages of questions in several papers at most examination centres in mid- June, the Council acted swiftly and cancelled the papers affected and rescheduled them for re-take. Three weeks later, it came to light that the rescheduled papers have again leaked in the Brong Ahafo region. This has led to police swoops in many educa- tional institutions, several students have been rounded up and many more have had to endure further agonising periods of revision and resits. An Accra lawyer, K.O. Boateng has sued the WAEC at an Accra High Court for one million cedis in general damages for financial losses, mental torture, pain and anguish which he and his ward have endured due to cancellation of examination papers, accusing the WAEC for failure to prevent theft and leakage of question papers.
Even before the order for re-take of cancelled papers, the government had set up the Taylor Committee of enquiry to investigate the leakages and other related matters within the WAEC such as security and staffing. The WAEC has been under tremendous pressure to put its house in order. One newspaper headline called for the Council "to bow its head down in shame." In two downright castigating editorials entitled 'Examining Exams' and 'Restoring our national dignity' out. the Peoples Daily Graphic questioned the relevance of paper certificates in shaping the moral fibre of our youth and went on further: "Is it fair to give a student one, two, three or four hours to prove that he or she deserves a certificate for what he or she has studied for five or seven years?"
The paper described the GCE/SC exams as being "oriented with the criterion to satisfy American and West European requirements, the fund- amental cause of brain drain...". Indeed, public correspondence in the media have tended to question the whole basis of examination as a component in the country's educational system which many believe ought to be replaced by a sort of continuous assessment system.
In fairness, public and media reaction and comments have overlooked the real cause of the situation, without which no amount of security by the WAEC can deter further attempts to pilfer question papers. Conditions of living in Ghana today preclude honesty and in the educational institutions, the situations prevailing create in themselves sufficient motivation and temptation to either buy or sell examination questions. The market is there and it represents an easy option out of a dire situation.
The ordinary worker at the WAEC offices has barely enough to keep him alive, and in the schools, the lack of textbooks, poor teacher attendances, food shortages, create panic in any student facing exams so ill-prepared that he is willing to sell his possessions to buy question papers without regard to the consequences. No-one will want to defend wanton abuse of examination secrecy and competitiveness. Far from it, but the true fact is that Ghana is in such terrible economic straits that examination leakage is but only one of the many ways in which public frustration and disenchantment is being vented
The WAEC is only an unfortunate scapegoat in a country where education is frowned on by the very young as an unnecessary bother when they can be selling iced-water to make money; in a country where order and discipline have withered away so profoundly. And this fact is evidenced by the proceedings of the Taylor Committee of enquiry. Mr Victor Thompson, a cle ical officer of the WAEC stated bluntly that financial problems forced him into stealing question papers because his wife was expecting a baby!
Already the WAEC is wallowing in a multitude of operational problems. Pupils who took their GCE/SC examinations in 1981 are still waiting for their certificates. Organising examinations involve hordes of indispensable intermediaries and functionaries such as supervisors, invigilators, examiners, etc., all of whom contribute to the successful conduct of examinations but over whom the WAEC can exercise marginal monitor.
The modality of collecting scripts from all examination centres and their distribution to examiners tend to strain the resources of the council to a greater degree. In a country like Ghana, it could take over two months for all marked scripts being returned from examiners who are spread all over the country to reach Accra by post. This is one of the principal causes of the lateness in the release of examination results.
In a heart to heart conversation with an official of the WAEC in Accra, he stressed that "Public understanding, cooperation and appreciation of its good works, rather than unbridled castigation is what the Ghana section of WAEC needs in these very difficult times, the sort of atmosphere it needs to rid itself of staff and functionaries of dubious integrity and to enforce its codes of conduct for all prospective candidates."
Indeed no one can deny that the WAEC has chalked considerable successes during its long tenure of existence. It is one of the pioneer regional institutions of West Africa that has weathered the thorny hurdles and trauma of post-colonial independ- ence in the region. It is appropriate to record that the WAEC has developed a number of examinations adapted to local policies, needs and aspirations of member countries, and has, as far as its resources would allow, maintained relatively consistent high standards in the conduct of examinations, often exacting in its own disciplinary code against proven offenders.
In the past, its Final Awards Committee has punished all cheats and frauds among candidates and among its own workers. It is one of the West African regional institutions that have overcome the barrier of a multiplicity of languages and cultures by setting questions within the context of each member country. The WAEC, especially its Ghana section, deserves credit for the tightrope it has been trailing for so many years. It has within the past decade drawn up syllabuses which have aimed at giving the student a much broader education.
The Council has changed with the times. New curricula have been developed for basic electronics, auto-mechanics, elementary surveying, accounting, statistics, business studies, shorthand and typing etc., all of which are conducive to post-secondary school vocational and professional training.
What has happened in Ghana in recent months is unfortunate and regrettable and one only hopes that the WAEC will not bow to public pressure to kick itself out of existence for it still has a role to play in the country's educational system since no other system has yet been proven to be capable of supplanting it.
The Educational Commission which is currently reviewing Ghana's educational system in general has invited public views and ideas on, among many other issues, 'The Control and Conduct of Examinations.' The Com- mission ought to assist and support the WAEC and emphasise its contribution in education standards formulation and development. It ought not to succumb to calls for its abolition, for would it not be a good idea if college principals and headmasters were made to assume statutory functions of "WAEC Representatives" in their institutions?
Finally, the WAEC should stand firm, consider this year's occurrences as passing phases and aim to emerge more dedicated towards their work, for Ghana and West Africa need the WAEC.
