EduWatch releases 2022 WASSCE School Monitoring Report

Education think tank – Africa Education Watch after postponing the release of the 2022 WASSCE School Monitoring Report slated for September 28, has finally published a statement on the conduct of the international examination.

The Monitoring Report on the 2022 WASSCE for School release comes after the leadership of EduWatch engaged the Minister for Education, Dr Adutwum and the West African Examinations Council for an executive briefing on the Report.

In the statement shared with AcademicWeek, the Education Watch said it monitored the 2022 WASSCE for School online and in 33 purposively sampled examination centres across the country between July and September 2022.

“Eduwatch obtained primary data from undercover monitors [Key Informants] in 33 Senior High Schools across the country, who provided information on happenings before, during and after the examinations. Monitoring started in July, four weeks before the scheduled start of the examination,” it stated.

As part of measures to ensure effective monitoring, the Watch said its online monitors were present on 20 rogue social media platforms (paid and free) to collect primary data on the leakage of examination questions before the scheduled start of papers.

“Some questions intercepted ahead of the examination on some rogue Telegram and WhatsApp platforms were later confirmed as leakages.

These questions were for Further (Elective) Mathematics 2 and General (Core) Mathematics 2 papers, which were each leaked nine (9) hours before their scheduled commencement time,” the think tank stated in the Monitoring statement.

Following the leakage of the two elective subject papers, EduWatch has suggested that the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) end the use of Ghana Education Service (GES) staff as supervisors of the international examination.

“The GES cannot self-supervise themselves in an exam in which some of their staff who are the invigilators, have been
repeatedly cited for colluding with candidates (their students) to facilitate cheating for financial gain and also to meet their KPIs,” it noted.

It has also urged the Ministry of Education and the management of the West African Examinations Council to re-negotiate the fees for invigilators and supervisors to realistic levels and ensure the prompt payment of same.

A total of 422,883 prospective candidates representing 203,753 males and 219,130 females from 977 Senior High Schools (public and private) registered to sit for the Ghana version of the international examination (WASSCE).