Sealing The Leakages

We would not have heard about any leakage in the ongoing Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), let alone cancellation of papers by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), had the anomaly been limited to schools in Accra and other urban areas.

The leakage was an unusual one covering as far afield as the rural parts of the country. That was why it found space on the social media and eventually attracted the attention of policy makers.

For some time now, public examinations in the country and indeed school placement have been afflicted by corruption. Amazingly though, these have been spared the vitriolic public discourse reserved for smelly occurrences.

We are returning to a subject we visited yesterday because of its overwhelming impact on education in the country. Besides, fresh developments have reared their heads, demanding such a return.

Many instances of leakages over the past few years have been confined to the bottom of carpets.

For the first time we are witnessing the opprobrium of members of the public to a development which, when not handled well, can have a telling effect on the image of education in the country.

We totally disagree with the education minister for who leakages of examination papers cannot affect our image on the international map of education. What is she talking about?

WAEC, embarrassed by the show of ineptitude, cast the occurrence diplomatically by avoiding the use of the word leakage. The integrity of the examination has been compromised is their preference. Be it as it may, WAEC failed to secure the papers and they found their way on the public domain before the examination date – and that is a leakage.

Post-independence Ghana had an enviable chip on her shoulder for churning out highly educated citizens. Many of these persons excelled when they went outside the country to work.

For a long time, Nigeria poached medical delivery personnel and teachers from Ghana. Nobody would have bothered hiring our professionals at the time they did on a large scale had we had this baggage of examination papers leakages festooned around our necks.

The candidates would go into the examination hall psychologically challenged as a result of the trauma of learning that their papers have had to be cancelled.

WAEC has over the years lost its stature as a respectable organisation charged with conducting world-class academic assessments. It is not surprising that some angry persons are demanding that the body be dissolved in consultation with member countries. This might have been driven by the anger of learning how inefficient the examination body has become – a mark of the level of frustration of Ghanaians.

It is refreshing that the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) has waded into the case: let nobody be spared if found culpable in this case.

The integrity of public examinations must be protected by all means because this is about our future human resource development.