College entrance test to end cheating in WASSCE – EduWatch
Africa Education Watch (EduWatch) after a teacher union (Ghana National Association of Teachers) called for the cancellation of the College of Education (CoE) entrance examination says the test will end cheating in WASSCE.
Considering how candidates who sit for WASSCE for School obtain good results, the Executive Director of the Watch, Kofi Asare in a post sighted by AcademicWeek said the College admission examination is a step in the right direction.
“I have noted the NTCs intention to introduce a literacy and numeracy entry exam before admission in Colleges of Education. Having witnessed how some candidates obtain good WASSCE results, I strongly endorse the decision.”
His endorsement follows a prediction in EduWatch’s WASSCE 2020 and 2021 Monitoring Report indicating universities might re-introduce entrance examinations to end the trends in examination malpractice recorded during WASSCE.
“In our WASSCE 2020 and 2021 Monitoring Reports, we predicted that, given the upward trends in examination fraud, it shouldn’t be surprising if our universities re-introduced their entrance examinations in all faculties,” Asare noted.
The Education Think Tank Executive Director continued that “our tertiary institutions are the only hope of insulating our education system from the ramifications of systematic West African Senior School Certificate Examination fraud.”
The literacy and numeracy entry examination to be administered for WASSCE graduates before they are admitted to any of the public Colleges of Education, the National Teaching Council has said will be conducted in August this year.
Registrar of NTC, Dr Christian Addai Poku last week told stakeholders students who become successful at the Ghana Basic Education Skills Examination Test (GBEST) will be only given admission to pursue various teacher education.
“The GBEST will, thus, be used as the entry assessment for the trainee teachers and after completion, the students will be made to write a level and subject-based licensure examination to be qualified as professional teachers,” he stated.
Dr Addai told stakeholders the new entrance exams form part of reforms being proposed by his outfit to harmonise teacher education admissions in the country and also improve teacher education as part of the educational reforms.
The Registrar of the National Teaching Council (NTC) further said the reforms are to ensure that prospective students who applied to be trained as teachers have the required qualifications and disposition to become teachers.
