22 headmasters in trouble

Twenty-two heads of public schools are to be sanctioned for their alleged complicity in various examination malpractices during the maiden West African Secondary School Certificate Examinations held last year.

14 public schools have also been barred from using their schools as examination centers for two years.

This and many others formed part of a wide range of recommendations and decisions made by WAEC to the Ghana Education Service on their conduct of the examination held last year.

Even though the names of the heads were not made available, 15 of then were found to have failed to enforce the rules and regulations while seven registered unqualified candidates.

The council also discovered that there was poor supervision and invigilation which resulted in mass cheating in a number of centers during the examination.

As a result, it said 13,419 candidates were found to be involved in 422 irregularity cases.

Of this number, 8,599 candidates were involved in mass cheating in some examination centers across the country.

Mrs. Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, Senior Public Affairs Officer of WAEC said that the Council would engage external officials to supervise the examination at school centers that had been barred for this year's WASSCE.

"The headmasters cannot supervise the examination and the teachers who were part of the previous examinations malpractice will however not be allowed to invigilate", she said.

She further explained that under WAEC rules and regulations, schools with lesser candidates would be arranged to join other schools in the locality to write the examinations.

While acknowledging that supervisors and invigilators were key personnel when it comes to conducting examination, she said "some of them did not do their work well and this led to the mass cheating recorded at some school centers last year."

Source: The Ghanaian Times