Private schools to leave WAEC for new examination body
Private Education Coalition (PEC) citing discrimination against private school students has proclaimed to withdraw from partaking in examinations conducted by the West Africa Examinations Council and set up its own examination body.
The decision comes after the Education Coalition requested an independent investigation into the marking of the 2021 edition of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) scripts of private school students across the country.
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Speaking on the Citi Breakfast show monitored by AcademicWeek, the President of the Ghana National Council of Private Schools (GNACOPS), Enoch Gyetuah said he believes WAEC deliberately marked down scripts of private schools.
The rigid marking, the Private Schools Council Director alleged was to enable candidates from public Junior High Schools (JHS) who participated in the 2021 BECE to perform much better than their colleagues from the private sector.
“Most of the private school students have been marked down, and we are calling for re-marking and even calling for an independent body to go into that. There’s even discrimination in the aspect of the school placement,” he told Citi.
in line with the GNACOPS Executive Director, PEC in a statement said If the government’s priority is on public schools, then the private sector ought to be able to be self-governing and thus set up its own examination body.
“If the Government’s priority is on Public schools, then the Private Sector ought to be able to be self-governing (including setting up its own examinations board) and moving students into private Senior High School,” PEC stated.
But, the management of the not-for-profit-making organization (WAEC) reacting to the GNACOPS Director’s claim has said the allegations that private schools’ BECE for School scripts were marked down are baseless and false.
A spokeswoman for the West African Examinations Council, Agnes Teye Cudjoe speaking on Accra-based Citi FM’s Eyewitness News show said the wild allegations raised by Enoch Obengfo Kwasi Gyetuah lack evidence and proof.
“I am a bit surprised by the allegations by GNACOPS because the BECE scripts of public or private schools are not marked differently. We do not have different index numbers for private schools and public schools
We have over 10,000 WAEC examiners who mark the BECE School scripts so how do you get these examiners together and tell them that these are the list of private schools marked down differently from public Junior High Schools
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) is a credible institution and I don’t think we will go that mile to mark private schools’ BECE papers down,” the Council’s spokesperson told the host of Citi FM’s EyeWitness News show.