A Passionate Appeal To All Parents, Heads Of Schools And Educational Stakeholders

In the coming week, candidates who have completed the syllabus for basic education will be partaking in this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination. This examination is to test their readiness for second-cycle education and any other higher form of education. Successful candidates will get placed in senior high or technical institutions of their choice and possibly, further to the tertiary levels. They will apply the knowledge and values they have gathered over the period of their education to help make the country and the world a better place to live in. However, there is a canker that is thwarting this effort.

As an owner of a basic institution that is over 2 decades old in the Awutu Senya East Municipality of the Central Region, my heart bleeds at this recent trend that is destroying all efforts of well-meaning parents and educators to raise a generation of upright, creative, skilful and deep-thinking individuals who are ripe to proffer excellent solutions to challenges facing our society. This trend of UNDUE OBSESSION WITH GRADES is crippling Ghana’s efforts to have competitive human resources for posterity.

I will be bold to explain what I mean: some basic institutions, in hopes of recording excellent results for competitive advantage, will move heaven and earth to make sure that the path for their candidates to come out ‘successful’ after the BECEs is greased to the ‘T’. This greasing is termed “motivation for invigilators” and it has been fuelled by some school heads. Now, while I am not against motivating invigilators or anyone toiling under Ghana’s sun, I will not condone it if it is collected on compulsion before the activity is fulfilled and if it will alter the disposition of the invigilator towards my candidates.

Over the past five years, I have noticed with disdain that schools, regardless of their stance, number of candidates or beliefs, are being compelled to pay a certain amount of money for the purpose of motivating invigilators. And a refusal to do so would warrant a hostile composure from invigilators upon the school at fault, and at times, tampering with booklets of candidates.

I say this with a lot of experience and some proof. Last year, my candidates were faced with this conundrum to motivate their invigilators; however, I asserted that it should not be under compulsion, so like has been our stance for over a decade we did not contribute to the pool of funds for ‘motivation’. This decision for the first time was met with such hostility from fellow heads and some invigilators at the centre. There came an anonymous threat that our candidates will fail if the management of their school did not contribute. True to those words, when the result came in December 2020, for the first time, my institution recorded grades we had never seen in our school history. Troubled, we sought remediation from the examination governing body, but since we lacked evidence, our appeal was not considered.

We committed it divinely and asked parents and candidates to stay calm. This went on until school placement finally came. Fortunately, every candidate got placed into a second cycle school. Fast forward a few months, students who performed abysmally in their BECE are leading their entire senior high school with amazing performances in semester examinations. This is the proof I have that something dubious went on after my candidates wrote.

I would like to suggest that caution must be taken in order not to tarnish the values of integrity, diligence, perseverance, temperance, vision and the innocence of the youth, who are the leaders of tomorrow. I am not surprised at the ill behaviour of recent WASSCE candidates because ill seeds were planted right from their basic education levels.

Heads of schools, we should not compromise on providential values because we want good grades, to get more enrolments and make more money, at the mercy of the future. What shall it profit us school owners if we gain all the wealth and thwart the future? Posterity will punish us. Imagine going to the hospital in your old age and realising that the doctor was a student whose path you greased to get good grades. How confident would you be in their ability to take good care of you? Let’s think about the future, let’s think of posterity.

Parents, please do not encourage any commitment to paying extra monies for the purpose of making your children get good grades. Please know that ‘righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to its people’. We will be fuelling bribery and corruption among our children. Together, we are responsible for training our children the way they should go so they will not depart from it.

Educational stakeholders, please continue to be vigilant on the state of the county’s education, do not be intimidated by any personality on your pursuits. There are a lot of cover-ups, and your eyes will help uncover them. Let’s help stop breeding bad and incompetent leadership for the next generation. If there is a case to support invigilators, let that be done publicly and transparently.

To all Ghanaians and well-wishers of our future, we must come on board and stamp out this deep-rooted corrupt and deceptive canker eating the integrity in our educational system. Our country needs a renewal of mind, and it must start at the educational level. Let us organise credible examinations.

If we do not mind this, the time bomb will explode in our faces soon.

By: Matilda Dankwa

Awutu Senya East Municipality