WAEC needs competitors - Education Minister-designate

Examination body West African Examinations Council (WAEC) will need other competitors in ensuring effective delivery of services, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, Minister-designate of Education, has said.

According to him, in other jurisdictions, there are more than two exam bodies offering such services to the people, and the same can be replicated here in Ghana.

Speaking during his vetting by the Appointments Committee of parliament on Tuesday January 24, he said: “There is a school of thought that says, ‘Why should it be only WAEC that is doing exams that we are taking in this country?’ The examination board probably needs competition because all we hear is students who are being frustrated most.

Students who studied and didn’t see exams questions get clobbered when supposed exam papers have leaked in the school leading to cancellation of the school results. The students are blamed for the leakage. What has happened to the examinations body?

“In other areas, there are two or three examinations bodies…I have read reports of senior educationists who are saying that they took some of the WAEC exams at a certain standard to students in the UK and they were failing so failure might not necessarily lead to a bad student. So we have to start thinking out of the box.

“Even the way WAEC brings out the examinations results, we found out that it is not helping the computer placement. So we have had discussions with WAEC that they are rendering a service on behalf of Ghanaian students, paid for by the Ghana government, and so they should be more responsive to our needs. We are not going to tolerate exams leakage.

“…We in West Africa have decided that an examinations body is called WAEC, we didn’t say that we can’t have other examinations bodies.”