Should There Be Other Examination Bodies To Compete With WAEC?

This article aims to discuss critically whether the WAEC dominance in Ghana should be broken in the wake of the recent WAEC paper leakages and malpractices as well.

The Functions Of The WAEC

The West African Examination Council, more commonly referred to as WAEC, is an examination board that was created in 1952 by law to decide which exams were necessary for the public interest in English-speaking West African countries, to administer the exams, and to issue certificates that were on par with those issued by comparable examining authorities internationally.

For 69 years, it has conducted numerous examinations. As they say, experience comes with age, but as continuous examination paper leaks have become the norm, WAEC’s credibility for many years is in jeopardy.

The multi-billion dollar question is why paper leakages are so commonplace right now. Are exam papers leaked by outsiders?

Who Leaks The Examinations?

A reputable examination organization, WAEC has both permanent and temporary employees. It is difficult for outsiders or non-WAEC employees to be the culprits of examination leakages.

The culprits are either permanent or temporary WAEC staff members. It is the responsibility of WAEC to keep an eye on things and hire people they can rely on to make sure no exam papers are leaked.

Therefore, WAEC must be held accountable for paper leaks if its own employees are leaking questions.

Should There Be Another Examination Body To Compete With WAEC?

Let’s first examine Nigeria, our neighbor, to find the answer. In addition to WAEC, they have other national examination bodies.

There have been leaks in the WAEC examination at the National Examinations Council (NECO), National Business and Technical Examinations Board (NABTEB), and Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), among others.

This indicates that creating a different testing organization to rival WAEC is not the answer.

There must be another way forward, such as serializing WASSCE exams, focusing only on WAEC employees’ monitoring, Officials from WAEC who were found guilty of exam leaks received severe punishment. Breaking Ghana’s WAEC monopoly in the short term is not a solution.

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