ELECTIVE
MATHS, ENGLISH WASSCE PAPERS FOUND THEIR WAY ONTO SOCIAL MEDIA – WAEC
The West African Examinations Council
(WAEC) has confirmed that two papers have been compromised in the ongoing West
African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE).
The Council says its investigations have
uncovered that extracts of the 2021 Elective Mathematics and English Language
tests, had been found in the public domain.
WAEC made this revelation at a news
conference on Wednesday in Accra.
Addressing stakeholders, Head of Test
Administration at WAEC, George Ohene-Mantey, said portions of the papers were
found to have been circulated before the examination as “the ‘cheating’ social
media groups were in full swing.”
“After the administration of the tests,
careful scrutiny of the several versions received indicates extracts of parts
of the questions for Mathematics (Elective) 2 and Section ‘A’ of English
Language 2 were circulated on some social media platforms,” he said.
The tests were subsequently written on
September 9 and 13, respectively.
The sub-regional examination management
body indicated that its “monitoring revealed that the circulation of numerous
versions, both printed and handwritten on most of the groups earlier,” the
Council further explained in a statement.
WAEC says though earlier reports suggested
that the circulation was not extensive, they are deploying “various
internationally accepted assessment procedures and interventions within its
domain to guarantee the credibility of results.”
Other misconducts observed during the
examinations so far include, “Inside examination hall malpractices and
invigilation, institutionalised examination malpractices, that is the execution
of pre-arranged plans to assist candidates in cheating, by solving questions and
distributing solutions to candidates.”
According
to Mr Ohene-Mantey, the rest are, “smuggling of mobile phones into examination
halls awaiting solutions from platforms they have made payments to.”