Ghana’s Deputy Director-General of Education Service, Mr. Kwabena Tandoh says that the country will go ahead with the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) scheduled for July 20, 2020, despite Nigeria pulling out.
His makes this comment following the news of the Federal Government of Nigeria rescinding their decision to open schools and calling off the WAEC administered examination due to health and safety concerns for students in the country.
Mr. Tandoh said this whiles speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express. He added that the West African Examination Council (WAEC) was yet to officially notify Ghana of a move by Nigeria to pull out of this year’s examinations.
He however said that WAEC’s member countries had come to an agreement to see to it that the exam takes place within the months of August and September.
“All of them had agreed we had communication to that effect. While it was proposed that it was Ghana that was going to write a Ghana Exam, all of our member countries in a response from WAEC to the Director General or to my Director General to the Honourable Minister was that all of our member countries, and ‘all of our member countries’ means our five countries had agreed to write the August/September exams.”
“We have not received any communication officially to the contrary and usually, we receive our communication from WAEC through official channels at the Ghana National Office and so if there is something in the news media we would at least wait for official communication. But as far as we are aware all member countries have agreed,” he said.
According to the Deputy Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), should WAEC confirm the report making rounds in the media about Nigeria pulling out of this year’s WASSCE, it would have little effect in changing the plans in Ghana or in other member countries.
Mr. Kwabena Tandoh recalls that earlier incidents such as the 2013 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone and Liberia had not stopped other WAEC member countries – Nigeria inclusive – from participating in WASSCE examinations in that year.
“It doesn’t change anything. Nigeria is still one of five countries. There are five countries, they all have equal vote and so we have had instances for example in 2013 when we had the Ebola crisis,” the Deputy D-G of the GES said.
“The rest of the countries; when you have a majority of the countries say they’re going to write an exam, the rest of the countries go ahead, WAEC makes specific arrangements for countries that are unable to write and so I believe that if with Nigeria making that decision once we receive the communication it’s still not going to change a thing.”
In the mean time, the timetable for this year’s WASSCE, has already been submitted to the Ministry of Education. By the schedule, it is expected to begin on Monday, July 20, 2020, with Project Work for Visual Arts candidates, while the theory papers will start from August 3, 2020, until September 5, 2020, when the five-week-long examination will be brought to an end with Principles of Cost Accounting and Technical Drawing.
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