Search for panacea for exam malpractices - The need to look beyond WAEC
There is no doubt that examination malpractices, including leaks defile the sanctity and integrity of our examinations and affect the quality of professionals we are producing from our institutions.
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Indeed, the leak of examinations creates profound distress among pupils, students, parents, policy makers and even the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) officials. This irregularity in examination administration erodes the success of any educational system, and it is the greatest corruption and injustice that can ever befall any educational system and for that matter a country.
One can, therefore, understand why the entire nation gets upset when there is examination leak. It is also understandable and legitimate that WAEC is blamed for examination malpractices, especially when it is a leak problem, even though I think sometimes this blame is overstretched.
The call for WAEC to sit up is a legitimate and reasonable one. The foremost examining body in West Africa and one of the best in Africa should be able to tighten the security of its examination as well as constantly review its exam protocols in order to pre-empt malpractices that emanate from lack of due diligence.
Undoubtedly, the fight against exam malpractice is a huge one that goes beyond WAEC. While WAEC ought to be held responsible for any immediate exam leak, we must also search for a solution to this perennial problem beyond WAEC and pit our campaign against the misdirection of our moral compass as Ghanaians, which is the foremost culprit.
The pressure and inducement for exam malpractice comes from society and at times from high echelons of our people, including politicians and chiefs who want the wards of their subjects or schools in their areas of jurisdiction to get good grades at all cost. There are retired senior civil and public servants who have opened private schools and prey on live question papers for their schools. This ill agenda is vigorously pursued with the objective of boosting the academic results of their schools in order to attract more pupils and students for profit purposes.
In the aftermath of the recent exam leaks, particularly that of the 2015 Basic Education Certificate Examination and the 2016 WASSCE leak (foreknowledge as explained by WAEC), many have called for the removal of human intervention in exam administration. This means that most of the exam tools and procedures used by WAEC from pre-exams to post-exams until results were released must be computer-driven.
This idea is fine but not totally practicable. It is possible to reduce human intervention in exam administration to some extent but not wholly. The setting of questions, printing of question papers, distribution of questions papers to schools on exam days, supervising the writing of the exam and marking of scripts will all involve one human intervention or another, and each stage has the equal potential for leak.
What is critical in all this is the integrity of the people involved in the examination administration chain. It is worth noting that in its examination administration, WAEC recruits non-WAEC personnel to help discharge its mandate, including officials from the Ghana Education Service (GES), headmasters, teachers and officers from the Ghana Police Service. In most cases, the integrity of these professionals is taken for granted. And yet much exam malpractice has been perpetrated with the direct connivance of corrupt police officials or invigilators who are predominantly teachers in our public schools.
It is critical that the campaign against the canker is embraced by all and targeted at moral rearmament of the Ghanaian. Exam malpractice, be it leak, foreknowledge, collusion, or impersonation, is a kind of corruption that has bedevilled the system for far too long. Until Ghanaians, whether as a WAEC staff, a supervisor (headmaster), an invigilator, a police officer, a politician, a chief or a parent, uphold high moral standards, the issue of exam malpractice cannot be a thing of the past.
In this regard, our religious leaders, chiefs and politicians must lead the campaign by consciously engaging in public education on the destructive nature of exam malpractices as a whole. Moreover, I will encourage WAEC to continue with the frequent review of procedures to tighten the bolts holding the integrity of our exams. Decentralising WAEC operations, including the opening of district offices, has become inevitable.
The call for an alternative examining body in Ghana is not the solution to the problem at hand. We have already seen how a certificate from Nigeria’s National Examinations Council (NECO), an alternative examining body in Nigeria, is still struggling for international recognition. Stakeholders, including civil society groups, must all work together to support WAEC to stem the leak wave with the collective objective of sustaining the integrity of our examinations and for that matter our pre-tertiary certificates.
The writer is the Executive Director of the Baraka Policy Institute (BPI), a think tank on Social Justice and Development with special focus on education and health.
Email: [email protected]/[email protected].