There is this general statement about exams and examiners in this God blessed homeland of ours called Ghana.It is that “examinations are conducted to be failed by students.” Some teachers and lecturers willproudly say that the students could not answer the questions they set and so failed, miserably.
The setting was in the University of Ghana, School of Administration bachelor’s degree class in 2000 or 2001. Two Ghanaian lecturers who had also taught in Australia and the US, were in charge of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SME) course and one of the Finance subjects, respectively.
Their style of teaching suited the students and everything went onfine. The SME classes, had a single and a double period per week. The lecturer used the single period for theory and the double period for practicals where student study groups took turn to make presentations in class and answer questions from their colleagues.
At the end of semester examinations, students reading SME and that Finance course, found the questions very easy and answered them so well. With the SME, more than seventy per cent of the students scored between A and B-. The rest were in the Cs. It was fairly the same in the Finance paper.
Hell broke loose in the academic board and the two lecturers were queried for setting cheap questions for the students. The results of the two papers were withheld for a whole semester but the two lecturers stood their grounds that they were not going to remark the papers to suit what the board wanted. Their students studied well and passed well; case closed.
While some lecturers took delight in dictating out notes all through their period for students to write down, without making room for explanations and discussions, lecturers in the SME, that Finance course and one or two others, actually taught the students in a way that they could easily assimilate everything.
Recent condemnations of the results of the WASSCE 2023 by the NDC led by ex-president John Mahama clearly indicated that like most lecturers and teachers who want pupils and students to fail their exams, the NDC also does not want success for students.
For H.E. John Mahama to say that, “You certify these children saying they are of this standard …… that child will use that certificate, go abroad to a school and they will find out that your qualification is not up to the standard you say it is”, can be said to be untrue.
The mode of teaching in the West is such that students can easily assimilate what they are taught. It is not like what we have here in this part of the world.
A below average student from Ghana can easily excel abroad. And I have a very true example. A student scored 9 in Chemistry in 1977 GCE O’level. In 1979 he was in his first year Poultry Science and Management class in Lincolnshire College of Agriculture and Horticulture in Caythorpe, Lincolnshire, UK. The chemistry syllabus was made up of O’level, A’ level and first year university chemistry. It was there that he knew his village people had accompanied him abroad.
When the chemistry lecturer took the class, this Ghanaian student found the subject so simple and quickly grasped what was taught. Not only that he topped his class in chemistry.
Yes, with Grade 9 in O’ level chemistry, he was able to top A’ level and first year university chemistry course in tertiary level. He was often called upon by students who read A’ level chemistry, to explain the subject to them.
The problem we have in this path of the globe is that, education is not flexible for the student or pupil. Chew-Pour-Pass is what the student here must apply if he must pass the exams and after that he will forget what he learnt. Abroad, if one intends to apply this method, he will fail his papers. There students are taught to apply knowledge and everything sticks.
This is what I expect the NDC to hope to address.
But seriously,the way the largest opposition party is condemning the WASSCE 2023 results, it may lead people to think that come 2025, if NDC takes over governance of this country, the results of the WASSCE 2023 will be declared null and void, scrapped and cancelled. All the 2023 students who sat the WASSCE will be required to re-sit.
And this will include those in tertiary schools who no matter their performance there, with their WASSCE certificates withdrawn, it will mean they are not supposed to be in the universities, until they re-sit WASSCE 2023.
It is speculated that the NDC had done something similar before. In 2008, during the NPP John Agyekum Kufuor’s administration, four hundred Ghanaians who went through the established process, got recruited into the Police service. Come 2009, with NDC in power, H.E. John Atta Mills, withdrew these officers from the Police, stating that they were politically appointed. If this could be done to the Police, then what can’t be done to students?
John Mahama and the NDC spoke about cheating in exams which is something that must truly be addressed. But most importantly, if students are taught in a way to apply knowledge, they may not find it necessary to cheat. I am not in any way supporting cheating, though.
Examination malpractices have been with us since examinations were first conducted in this country. And WAEC is the main culprit. No one asks this question, “how did the students get question papers before the examinations?” The examination questions are compiled, printed and kept in the vaults of WAEC until they are ready to be distributed to the examination centers. Strangely, students can get these papers days before they actually leave the vaults at WAEC and they pay for them.
But whenever this is found out, only the students get punished. Investigations never include finding out who leaked the question papers from the WAEC office. So, as it is every year, some people at WAEC enrich themselves, some people in this supply-chain also enrich themselves, but they also never get arrested and punished.
We were told that 448,640 students from 975 schools sat for WASSCE 2023 which took place from July to September 2023. In December 2023, the results came out and according to WAEC it was the best ever in four years.An average of 69.73%, or about 312,837 of the candidates secured grades between A1-C6 in the four core subjects which included English and Maths. This is very good.
In a news conference, WAEC announced that a total of 6,771 candidates(1.5%), from 235 schools (24%) had their results under investigations for various acts of examination malpractices.
With this number, how can the NDC generalised that there was gross examination malpractice? How can they politicise this and tell Ghanaians that the government manipulated the results to make Free SHS look good?
It is very sad, since lots of the candidates might surely have studied hard and the results, they had, were genuine. When these efforts are being played down, how will they feel? The NDC intends to create a situation where people will point at these brilliant students and mock them for cheating in their examinations.
Lack of appropriate books and studying materials do not mean that candidates should underperform during examinations. John Mahama and the NDC should know this.
Brilliant students do not come only from well-endowed schools as records show. Some students who are academically handicapped, due to the environment and the less-endowed schools they find themselves in, study hard and get well prepared for examinations and they pass well. With such marvellous results, the least they can get is to be commended for their good efforts. They do not need to be mocked. This is simply wicked and reckless.
Talking about education as priority, is the NDC not aware that it is the PNDC which almost crumpled our educational system? In 1987, Ghana changed to JSS/SSS system from the GCE O and A’ level system, without adequate preparations. Everything was half baked and when a seasoned educationist, Mr Yegbe complained he was removed from his high office in the ministry and thrown into some school.
The universities had to introduce an additional year to the first-degree courses so as to prepare the freshmen well for tertiary education.
Ghana’s education system took a nosedive from 1987. The PNDC/NDC is known to have nothing good to offer education in Ghana, so John Mahama must be seen to act and not to promise to transform education. That transformation may mean as the NDC promised, the reviewof the Free SHS policy. Review in NDC language, will mean cancelling that policy and many students especially those from deprived homes will stay out of school and become additional burden to society.
The only way to improve the Free SHS policy, is to introduce a direct tax system that will carter for the policy.
The former president, H.E. John Dramani Mahama and the NDC cannot condemn the results of WASSCE 2023 which is best in four years. They have no grounds to politicise their bad feelings towards the efforts the candidates made, even as WAEC came out with a litany of examination malpractices against about 1.5% of the candidates and never made mention of any government appointee.
In all this, WAEC is the main culprit, the major source of examination malpractices and the Council need to tackle this canker within it. Why is that only students and teachers get punished when someone in WAEC leak the question papers to them for good cash? Is there a strong syndicate or mafia in WAEC which undeservedly cash-in from students whose only desire is to pass their examinations?
In Ghana, it seems, examinations are conducted with the sole aim to fail majority of students as possible, so that the examiners can proudly strike their chests and say that they set tough questions and the students could not answer. Then enters the NDC who also believes that students need to fail their examinations.
By Hon. Daniel Dugan
