Executive Director for Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, has revealed that his outfit has gained experience in the changing phases of examination leakages in the country.
According to him, such experience affords him better perspectives into how such leakages of papers occur during WASSCE.
Commending the efforts of the CID in arresting a section of persons involved in the circulation of the English and elective mathematics papers, he noted that his team has been monitoring the unfolding of events in WASSCE for some time now.
“Let me first indicate that the arrest of the Jerusalemah guys was a collaboration between WAEC and security officials. Jerusalemah was one of the platforms that we engaged the CID on… it is a good step [going] forward. We have been monitoring the conduct of WASSCE for the second year running. We’ve gained a little bit of experience in the dynamics of examination leakage.
“The experience we have gained working on the ground; on WhatsApp platforms, on telegram platforms… engaging with the question marketers in the past two years gives us a privileged understanding of how leakages occur”.
Mr Kofi Asare
Kofi Asare, however, explained that his outfit is not “equivocal” in pointing out the leakages which“occured at the depot”. According to him, he indicated that he has no personal problems with WAEC about the circulation of English and mathematics papers.
Furthermore, he noted that WAEC insists their investigation reveals that these two papers were circulated on “social media after the papers were opened in the [exam] room”. Contrary to WAEC’s assertion, Kofi Asare revealed that his outfit received the leaked papers between 10 to 11pm. However, WAEC on the other hand insist the leakage occurred forty-five minutes to the start of exam.
“So, we have provided our evidence to the CID to track wherever the people who got the questions and sold them got them from. But what we know is that we got these questions before midnight”.
Mr Kofi Asare
Tracking source of exam leakages
In rectifying the leakage menace, Kofi Asare opined that it is imperative to “trace the source of leaks”. This, he explained, are the leads that should guide “us in finding out the source of the problem”.
“…alongside accosting people who through their facilitation obtained these questions to do business with them online and in schools”.
Mr Kofi Asare
Commenting on some officials of WAEC being complicit in the leakages, Mr Asare stated that he doesn’t have the right to pronounce “culpability in such matters”. However, he explained that in his “analysis”, the only persons in custody of papers that leaked is WAEC.
“At the time questions are leaked, they are the only lawful authority that have custody of papers. So, whether the questions are leaking from the depots… I don’t know. What we know is that the time the questions leaked are not times that the students are in the examination hall…”
Mr Kofi Asare
Meanwhile, the Ranking Member on Parliament’s Education Committee, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe has stated that he is expecting the Minister for Education and officials of WAEC to appear before Parliament to answer questions about the leakage of examination papers
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