Ghana wrote 2023 GHASSCE not 2023 WASSCE: RESULTS And MATTERS ARISING: Dr. Clement Apaak break the facts into digestible pieces in this wrote up.
The purpose of this article is to share the bare truth based on records, with the Ghanaian public, key stakeholders of our democracy. In the wake of WAEC’s publication of the 2023 WASSCE results, apologists of the failed Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP government have been busy pushing a rather fraudulent narrative.
What many may not know is that, since 2020, students in Ghana have written a customised, Ghana specific WASSCE. Or, if you like, GHASSCE. There is a bit of explanation on this. Other member nations of WASSCE postponed their 2020 WASSCE examinations to 2021 due to the unanticipated emergence of the covid-19 pandemic.
Ghana government, however, hurriedly made arrangements with WAEC to enable Ghanaian students write their examination in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic, ignoring adherent dangers it posed, coupled with the credibility of government as the sovereign and protector of citizens, at stake.
The Daily Graphic online, 18th December 2023, succinctly captures this truth in its opening paragraph on the subject matter, as follows: “Provisional results of candidates who sat for the 2023 Ghana Only Version of WASSCE for school candidates have been released by the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC).”
Consequently, it is dishonest on the part of anyone to compare results of Ghanaian students who wrote the regional level WASSCE before 2020, to those who wrote the customised Ghana WASSCE or GHASSCE, from 2020 to the present. At best, we can only compare the results of WASSCE [GHASSCE] 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, as WAEC has rightly done in its press release announcing the 2023 results.
Equally, the performance of Ghanaian students from 2020 to the present can not be compared to their peers in the other WAEC member nations who still write the traditional regional level examination. This explains why, unlike the period before 2020, no Ghanaian student has won the prestigious West African Examination Council international excellence award.
In 2014, three Ghanaian students who participated in the award competition with other students from other WAEC member nations swept all three top awards. According to a GNA report dated March 12, 2015, the overall top candidate, Hasan Mickail, a former student of Ghana Secondary Technical School [GSTS] in the Western Region, who was the best candidate in the General Science Programme, both at the national and international level, also won the Bandele Award in the whole of West Africa.
The question many stakeholders in education are legitimately asking is, why has Ghana not abandoned the Ghana specific WASSCE [GHASSCE] to rejoin the regional level examination or WASSCE, in this post covid era?
Until our students write the same examinations at the regional level, their performance can not be compared to their pre-covid [pre FSHS] seniors nor their other West African peers.
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Dr. Clement Apaak
MP/PC, Builsa South and Deputy Ranking Member, Education Committee