WAEC explains why Nov-Dec candidates are scattered across exam centres
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) says it has been compelled to scatter candidates writing the November-December West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) around the various examination centres for each paper they write due to the large number of candidates and the use of centres that do not belong to the council.
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“This is an examination for private candidates so they should bear with us as we have to use centres which do not belong to us and, therefore, have to make the best of the situation. For instance, the Asare Menaku Hall in Accra which is a WAEC Centre can take less than 1000 candidates so when candidates have to write an exam for a core subject which normally has more than that number of candidates we have to ask them to write at different locations,” the Head of Public Affairs of WAEC, Mrs Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, explained.
She was responding to concerns raised by candidates over the decision of the council to keep moving candidates from one examination centre to the other to write the Nov-Dec examination.
In the past candidates who select a particular centre write all the papers for the Nov-Dec exam at that particular centre.
Miss Odoi, a candidate, said although she lived at Kaneshie she had written five subjects at three different centres, which are nowhere close to her house.
“It was very tiring because the time I used to locate those centres before the day for the exam could have been used to study,” she said.
Another candidate, Master Owiredu said he was writing the eight subjects he had registered at six different centres.
Under the current WAEC arrangement, a candidate is not allowed to write all his papers at one particular centre. Candidates move from one centre to the other until the examination ends.
The candidates complained that the problem with this arrangement was that they did not know these centres and, therefore, need to go round the various communities to locate the centres prior to the exam or risk arriving at the centre late.
However, Mrs Teye-Cudjoe said it would be difficult to assign candidates to particular centres because “there may not be examination centres where a candidate lives.”
“We give candidates centres according to the availability of the centres and also according to the number of candidates writing the examination. What we ask candidates to do when they are registering for the examination is to select where they want to write the examination,” she added.
She stated for instance that if a public second cycle school was being used on a week day, it meant that there would be limited use of its facilities and so candidates would have to be sent to centres that would be able to accommodate them.
“When we use schools as centres during the week, we are not be able to use all their facilities; so if you look at what has been done with the current examination, subjects such as English, Maths, Science and Social Studies are written on weekends when we can have more school facilities at our disposal. The problem has to do more with the availability of centres and the number of candidates writing the exam than anything else,” she pointed out.
A total of 128,292 candidates are writing the WASSCE Nov-Dec this year.
