WAEC’s monopoly must be broken – Napo

The incoming Education Minister Mathew Opoku Prempeh is calling for the monopoly being enjoyed by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to be challenged.

In the view of the education minister-designate, other examining bodies must be allowed to enter the space in order to engender competition.

WAEC with its headquarters in Accra, Ghana, was established in 1952 after the Governments of Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and The Gambia enacted the West African Examinations Council Ordinances in 1951. Liberia became the fifth member of the Council in 1974.

The enactment of the Ordinances was based on the “Jeffrey Report”, which strongly supported the proposal for the setting up of a regional examining board to harmonise and standardise pre-university assessment procedures in the then British West Africa.

Reacting to questions before the Appointments Committee of parliament Tuesday, the Manhyia South MP said it is time Ghanaians reconsidered the control of the West African examination body.

“We must begin to think about this whole WAEC issue and why it is the only examining body in this country. In other areas there are two or three examination bodies so students have options. Over here, it is always the student that is blamed, but never WAEC; the examiner. It is proven that even the way WAEC releases the results of the exams, does not help the computer placement exercise. So we must begin to look at it again,” he said.

Mr. Opoku Prempeh also served notice that the NPP government will not tolerate examination leakages.