Information reaching Ghana Education News indicates that some agitated WAEC examiners have called on WAEC to pay them their delayed examiners’ income for the year 2023. If WAEC does not make the requested payment for the 2023 WASSCE, the call that examiners in the Bono Region started is likely to spread across the country.
The 2023 WASSCE Examiners, per the rules of their engagement, have completed their part of the bargain, from invigilating to marking of scripts, and the results relating to the said work have also been released.
However, they seem to be waiting forever for the little the Examination Council is supposed to pay them.
According to the examiners, WAEC is good at intentionally delaying the payment of remuneration to examiners, and they will not allow this to continue any longer. The delay in paying examiners has become a ritual for WAEC. Although the results have been released for candidates who sat the said examination, examiners who did all the hard work for WAEC are still hoping and waiting for their rightful compensation.
Some examiners who started providing faithful service to the council indicated that since 2010, they have been marking scripts for WAEC and that WAEC has not changed from the delayed payment since then.
“I started marking in 2010, and everything was okay; until recent times, the payments have not been forthcoming. We have to wait for so many weeks or even months before we are paid. That is my concern; that is what we are going through now as examiners.
“When you contact WAEC too, they will tell you the government has not given them the money. We don’t even have anybody to fight for us. They do everything against us. Look at the stress we went through during the marking; up until now, we have not been paid.”
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Another said, “In fact, I’m even fed up to tell you the truth; I’m getting fed up because this is not the first time they are doing this. They have been delaying our payments for about two years now.”
“WAEC pressure examiners, in which we have to work overnight. The employer-employee relationship is not going well. They should have even alerted us if there were any distortions, but they don’t do that, and this has become a problem now,” one of the examiners also complained.
WAEC officials have refused to speak on the matter. WAEC has also indicated that it is indebted to the examiners and that efforts are being made to pay them. The question many are asking is: must WAEC wait for examiners to complain before they open up and communicate with them?
Despite their refusal to speak on camera, the WAEC office in Sunyani’s administrators have acknowledged the outstanding payments owed to the examiners and given them assurances that they will receive compensation once the government releases the funds. A news item by Myjoinline indicated.
2023 WASSCE Examiners chase WAEC for their Money: -How Did WAEC Get Here?
In 2017, the government of Ghana decided to pay for the examination fees of students in public basic and secondary schools who will be writing the WAEC-administered BECE and WASSCE examinations. What this meant was that, instead of WAEC receiving its examination fees outright from parents through schools that register such candidates, it has to now suspend the benefits of receiving its fees instalment to a designated payment of the same amount from the government. This is the genesis of the current delays in paying examiners. The government does not honour its obligations when they fall due; hence, WAEC will always be broke. It currently gets its income, thus exam fees, outright from all privately registered candidates for the BECE and not from public school candidates until the government feels like paying.
As of Wednesday, October 4th, no money had hit WAEC’s account from the government yet, and WAEC has not indicated since then to date if it has received the funds from the government. The government owes WAEC as it pays for the examination fees of BECE and WASSCE candidates in public institutions. Until the government pays these funds, WAEC will be financially handicapped and cannot meet its obligations to examiners.