Parents Must Demand Action on 2024 WASSCE Results Delay. If you are a parent of a 2024 WASSCE candidate and you are not worried about the continous delay of the results, you need to look at your ward’s body language as the delay drags on and begin to ask goverment pay the exam fees it decided to take up now.
It is surprising that parents whose wards sat the 2024 WASSCE for school candidates are not demanding the release of the results from WAEC and the Government of Ghana.
With schools projected to resume on January 4th, 2025, WAEC should have released the WASSCE results by now. In 2023, WAEC released the results on December 18th. This year, the exact release date remains uncertain. WAEC and the government must share the blame for this delay.
Parents have remained quiet because the government covered the examination fees. When everything, including exam fees, is provided free by the government, parents may lack the confidence to hold authorities accountable.
Parents must wake up and demand the release of the results. Stakeholders in education, including civil society organizations, teacher unions, and the general public, must also press for action. Delays in releasing the results create challenges for parents, SHS graduates, and universities.
If parents had paid the exam fees, WAEC would likely have the financial resources to carry out post-exam activities, avoiding delays. Going forward, WAEC must ensure that any government covering exam fees pays in advance. Alternatively, parents could shoulder the costs entirely or share the burden with the government on a 60/40 basis, where parents contribute 60% and the government subsidizes 40%. This same approach must be introduced at the BECE level for all students irrespective of they being students in public or private schools to ensure equitty and fairness.
After benefiting from three years of Free SHS, parents should be better positioned to pay exam fees. If Free SHS improves and issues such as poor feeding and double-track systems are addressed, parents can save money on vacation classes and redirect those funds to cover examination costs.
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It is time to demand action on 2024 WASSCE results now before it disrupts the 2024-2025 academic calendar of tertiary institutions as well.
The government seems not to consider the payment of the full GHS118 million owed to WAEC as a priority, given that the elections are over and they have lost. It will therefore require the loud voices of parents, students, and all other stakeholders to send a strong signal to the government to act swiftly and resolve the situation.