Provide evidence – WAEC challenges Africa Education Watch over WASSCE claims

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) is challenging the Africa Education Watch to provide evidence that over 60,000 students who sat for the West Africa Senior Schools Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) have had their results withheld.

Head of Public Affairs of WAEC Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, who spoke to Alfred Ocansey on 3FM's Sunrise morning show said the Africa Education Watch must provide their sources so the claims are verified.

According to Africa Education Watch, WAEC must release the full results of the over 60,000 students withheld from 122 Senior High Schools across the country in the just ended WASSCE.

The organization said last year, WAEC initially withheld the results of over 45,000 students under similar pretext only to release the results later and, as a result, many candidates who were cleared of the alleged malpractice could not apply for admissions into tertiary institutions.

However, Agness Teye Cudjoe said: “I don’t know where they are getting that information from because the information that I have, I don’t think the statement that we issued we gave that statistics, so I don’t know where they are getting that from.”

She also queried, “Do they go and check the results of every candidate before they put out that statistics because really they should have gotten their statistics somewhere so I am a bit at a loss”.

Agnes Teye-Cudjoe said people give them information on things that go on in the schools including malpractices when the examinations are underway.

There are also concerned citizens who write to them about examination malpractices, she indicated.

“WAEC will not withhold results because we just love to do it. No! Because withholding results even give us more work because we have to go and scrutinize scripts of sometimes over 500 candidates.

“That is why we hold some of the results of the students for further investigations. If after we have withheld, we realize that the evidence is not that strong, sometimes we put the benefit of doubt to the students and we release the results so we will not internationally withhold the results and release after admission is over.”

WAEC said there are instances where they invite candidates to come over and assist but they refuse.

The Head of Public Relations said there are instances where they publish the names of candidates in the papers to help in investigations but the office is unsuccessful.

This, according to her, sometimes delays the investigations.

Meanwhile, Executive Director of the Africa Education Watch Kofi Asare says they have their sources inside WAEC and they are not obliged to disclose their sources.

According to him, some candidates last year got a court judgement for WAEC to release their results only for WAEC to release the results in October by which time matriculations were over in the universities.

“She must be concerned about that rather than where the information came from.”