WASSCE will be smooth - GES, WAEC assure

The Ghana Education Service (GES) has said that it is ready for the 400,000 Senior High School (SHS) students expected to write the West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

The number of students registered for this year’s examination increased from the usual less than 200,000 to over 400,000.

The increase in the number of students is because two batches of students from SHS 4 and 3 are both writing the same examination this year.

There were fears the students will scramble for space during the exercise but the GES has dismissed the fear.

The Deputy Director General at the GES, Stephen Adu told Citi News, "the problem is with the practicals because with the practicals, they will need the Science laboratories so what we have done is that we have appealed to the heads of institutions to increase the equipments that they use for the practicals".

He expressed the certainty that “every school is now on top as far as the practicals are concerned.”

Mr. Adu further explained that some schools have converted spaces such as the school’s dining halls for examinations while the practicals for subjects like physics will be done in batches.

“For the other general examinations, where the numbers are very, very big, that is why we are breaking the term so that all the students will then go home and then come back later. So it’s like we are vacating earlier so that we can create enough room for the general examinations,” he said.

The West African Examinations Council, (WAEC) on its part also stated it will face no challenges in conducting this year’s WASSCE despite the overwhelming numbers.

The Public Relations Officer for WAEC, Agnes Teye Cudjoe, mentioned that the Council was aware of the problem before hand so measures have been put in place to curb the situation.

She said: “We knew that we would be conducting exams about double the candidature. We have about 410, 000 candidates so in terms of making the necessary materials ready; question papers, answer booklets and all that, we’ve taken it into consideration and so in that regard, we are going on fine.”