Mahama goofed in his criticism of Free SHS students and teachers invigilating WASSCE

Former President, John Dramani Mahama recently challenged the authenticity of the results for the West Africa Senior Schools Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

According to him, some invigilators do not do their job well as teachers are found helping students in answering questions for them. The former president is reported to have said, “In many places, they let the children cheat. You go to places and the teachers are conniving with the students to cheat.... You certify these children saying they are of this standard either the BECE or SSCE, and that child will use that certificate, go abroad to a school and they will find out that your qualification is not up to the standard you say it is”.

This position of the former president is once again being defeated as Free SHS students/ beneficiaries from Ghana on Tuesday won all the top three International Excellence Awards instituted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to honour candidates with outstanding performance at the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

A Ghanaian Free SHS beneficiary, Amo-Kodieh Leonard Kofi Marton, formerly of St James Seminary Senior High School (SHS), was adjudged the overall winner. He topped with a score of 623.5512. This student is currently reading Medicine at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Another Ghanaian Free SHS beneficiary, Dzandu Selorm, formerly of the Labone SHS, took the second spot with a score of 623.1882. He is also now a medical student at the KNUST. Another former St James Seminary SHS student, Daniel Asenso-Gyambibi, took the third place with 622.4438. He is currently at the Ashesi University.

The awardees emerged at the top in the 2023 WASSCE written by a total of 2,327,342 candidates from the five member countries of the council and this demonstrates Ghana’s special place among it’s member countries. This also demonstrates that in spite of our challenges we are simply the best among the five member countries.

These Free SHS heroes obtained grade A1 in at least eight subjects, including English, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Health Sciences and Integrated Science as well as one subject category of the core subjects. There is no evidence of any teacher facilitating illegally for them to get their excellent grades.

It is a shame that the former president who should have been congratulating the Free SHS students and thanking the gallant Ghanaian teachers for their commitments and hardwork is rather passing disparaging remarks just to undermine the efforts of our gallant teachers and promising students.