Schools must take over invigilation of exams

Mr Samuel Bannerman Mensah, Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) on Tuesday emphasised the need for school authorities to be allowed to take charge of invigilation of examinations in their various schools in order to avoid disruptions from striking teachers who want to use it as a bargaining tool.

He said when schools were in charge of invigilation the school heads
would be able to choose teachers who out of their own volition were prepared
to supervise examinations for their schools without monetary considerations.

Mr Bannerman was speaking during a tour of some secondary schools in
Accra taking part in this year's West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (WASSCE).

In all 134,083 candidates from 569 senior secondary schools made up of 74,628 males and 59,455 females across the country have registered to write
this year's exams.

Mr Mensah said because of threats by members of the National Association
of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) to boycott this year's WASSCE exams for non-payment of invigilation allowances it would be prudent for heads of schools to select people who would work for the love of their jobs and not for their own parochial interests.

"The fact that you are a teacher does not mean you have to invigilate
exams at all costs, especially when you are not willing to sacrifice a bit for the young ones," he stressed.

Mr Mensah also denied claims by NAGRAT that their previous invigilation allowances had not been paid but stated that there were a few delays with some of the payments.

He expressed satisfaction about the smooth conduct of the exams and the measures put in place by the various heads to ensure incident-free exams.

"I am generally satisfied with the conduct of the exams so far and hope this is repeated in other parts of the country.”

The GES boss' first point of call was Accra Academy where 558 candidates had registered for the WASSCE exams but there were two students who were absent while one had died.

The atmosphere at the exams hall was calm with no case of exam malpractices as students were seen busily writing their Core Mathematics Core Paper Two.

The situation was not different at the Wesley Grammar Secondary School where two others schools - Accra Wesley Girls High School and Mars Business College - were using as their examination centre.

Source: GNA