The Head of West African Examinations Council’s legal department, Rev. Victor Brew, has discounted parts of the 2020 WASSCE report released by education think tank, Africa Education Watch.

According to him, some sections of the report that tackled leakage of mathematics papers were inundated with some inconsistencies.

The report by Africa Education Watch also revealed that general exam malpractices recorded had the potential of affecting the credibility of the national exam.

Speaking in an interview, Rev Brew explained some reasons for harbouring such assertions.

“There are a number of inaccuracies in this report that was launched by Africa Education Watch, and we are prepared to speak to these factual inaccuracies. For example, they mention of the leakage of the Mathematics paper in the 2020 WASSCE, and the fact that WAEC had not done much to deal with the matter is not true. It is not true that we did not do anything about the purported leakage.

“There wasn’t a leakage to the degree that you will say that the paper needed to be annulled. You look at the methodology, and they say they used key informants in selected schools to whom they have signed a non-disclosure agreement to bring out a report. This is supposed to be a report based on research investigation, I think that Africa Education Watch must come again”.

Recommendations not possible

Touching on recommendations made by the education think tank, which concluded by calling for a detailed research and investigation into the 2020 WASSCE, Rev. Brew maintained that, these proposals made by the Africa Education Watch were not possible.

As part of the recommendation, Africa Education Watch requested government to take steps to divorce GES and the Ministry of Education from WAEC’s Governing Committee.

It also asked the government to break the monopoly enjoyed by WAEC in assessing students and conducting examinations in Ghana by regulating the powers of the council.

“With regard to the issue of regulation, WAEC is supposed to be an international examination body, serving not only Ghana. There are other member countries that have their own governing body which regulates activities. On the issue of monopoly, in terms of pre-tertiary assessment, WAEC Ghana Office is not the only entity. You are talking about GES, NVTI, NABTEX, so the issue of monopoly is a moot one.”

Africa Education Watch report

The Africa Education Watch, launched its 2020 WASSCE Report titled ‘An independent assessment of the conduct of the 2020 WASSCE by WAEC was launched via Facebook live and a Zoom meeting on Wednesday, June 16, 2021.

It sought to investigate and document irregularities that characterized the conduct of the 2020 WASSCE by WAEC.

Also, the educational think tank reviewed relevant literature on previous WAEC examinations’ reports in Ghana. With this, it further discussed the root causes, symptoms, and effects of WAEC’s perennial examination malpractices in Ghana.

Identifying the problems, Africa Watch Education made recommendations on policy and administrative remedies to improve the conduct of examinations in Ghana.