WAEC’s withheld WASSCE results investigations, shield officials, punish students

The current approach for BECE and WASSCE exam malpractices, announcements, investigations, and timing has been so depressing and negatively affecting the education, mental health, fortunes, and opportunities available to candidates.
WAEC’s withheld WASSCE results investigations Criticism of Current Practices:
Ghanaian students who are not in charge of setting WAEC exam questions, who are not in charge of finalizing and approving exam questions, who are not in charge of printing and safeguarding questions, who are not in charge of dispatching and supplying questions to WAEC exam questions and who are not responsible for carrying out the exam have become the most targeted and victimised stakeholders when it comes to examination malpractices and the application of punitive measures against all the people involved in the processes above.
When it comes to WAEV examination malpractices and related investigations, students suspected to have engaged in some form of malpractices have their details splashed on WAEC’s portal, including their names, index numbers, etc. However, the same is not done for WAEC officials who start the entire examination malpractice process.
Unfortunately, the investigation process used by WAEC does not sound and look scientific and is not free from biases.
WAEC’s withheld WASSCE results investigations and Impact on Students:
Come to think of it, a student is picked and found to have engaged in some form of examination malpractices; the entire school results for a subject are cancelled. To what extent can you conclude scientifically that a particular student took part or did not take part in the case of school-based cheating that had taken place?
So many students I don’t know send their comments on WhatsApp and through our blog posts on our sites and express deep-rooted frustrations about the withholding of their results.
Come to think of it, who has even thought of the depression the actions of WAEC cause students whose results are withheld? Parents and guardians must be ready to sue WAEC for such secondary but worrying effects on students.
Issues with the Investigation Process:
- There are surely instances where the decision by WAEC to withhold the results of students turns out to prove that the students committed no exam violations in any way.
- Others whose results have been withheld never get invited; they don’t see their names on the list of students withheld by WAEC. Who speaks for such students, who fights their case?
- Can WAEC openly and confidently say every student whose results have ever been withheld was actually invited to the WAEC investigations?
- Were all suspected candidates of exam malpractices’ results released and cancelled? Has WAEC never released at any point in time that it has withheld the results of candidates who were not even invited for investigations?
- WAEC’s decision to withhold results is not fair because there are ignorant students who become part of WAEC’s suspected exam malpractice students.
- Has WAEC ever apologised to such students who knew nothing about the so-called issues being investigated?
READ: Check WAEC Withheld Results on Waecgh.org (New Feature)
Proposed Solutions:
- WAEC must re-examine its approach to investigating alleged exam malpractices. The investigation period and activities should also be part of the marking process. This, WAEC should not wait until results are released to disclose how many students have had their results withheld, among others.
- Instead, this process should be further decentralised from taking place in WAEC regional offices. This will have several benefits:
- Those suspected to have engaged in this will be more willing to attend such programs.
- WAEC will not keep parents and students on a knife’s edge after results have been released because once the investigations are over and results are released, those that have been cancelled will know their fate. This way they can know what to do and, if possible, register for the next exam.
- Every effort to make the WAEC exam malpractices investigation processes more humane, signifying, and less stressful needs to be adopted.
WAEC’s withheld WASSCE results investigations and Broader Systemic Issues:
- WAEC exam officers and exam-leaking syndicates seem to never get arrested. Are they working with people in authority at the WAEC? Do they have influential people in WAEC working with them? Are they part of a grand scheme owned and managed by people in top places in WAEC for which reason they are hardly arrested or caught?
- WAEC seems to be chasing the shadows of examination malpractices (students) and leaving the real people who have made this illegal an annual evil, a lucrative venture, and selling WAEC questions, answers, or marking schemes before and during WAEC examinations.
READ: 2025 BECE and WASSCE dates confirmed by GES
WAEC’s withheld WASSCE results investigations: Alternative Approaches:
- There have been instances in the past when WAEC has directed students to rewrite papers due to high levels of exam leakage detected by the council.
- Is it also not possible for WAEC to organise a special resit for all students suspected of engaging in exam malpractices 10 days after the official end of the exam? This way candidates can retake the papers they are suspected to have cheated on.
WAEC must stop worrying candidates in the name of exam malpractices investigations and find innovative, forward-looking ways to deal with suspects.