Youth alliance for development urges WAEC to ....

rescind its decision to cancel five bece papers

We at Youth Alliance for Development received with shock the announcement by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) that five papers of the ongoing Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) have been cancelled. Our shock and disappointment stem from the fact that four of those papers had already been written by the over 400,000 candidates sitting for the exams this year.

The Youth Alliance for Development strongly disagrees with the position of WAEC and considers their action as unfortunate considering the psychological and emotional trauma these innocent students have to go through.

To us the candidates have no role to play when it comes to upholding the integrity and credibility of examinations churned out by WAEC and find it difficult to comprehend why they must be made to re write the papers.

To this end we recommend that WAEC quickly rescind its decision on the cancellation of the four papers written already. We however urge the council to apply its sanctions to students and invigilators caught with irregularities.

We appeal to the media to keep an eagle eye on the ongoing investigation by the BNI into the matter and inform the general public of their findings.

Whilst we believe in the conduct of theoretical examinations, we also believe that there is too much emphasis on this form of examination when it comes to assessment of students. We make a passionate appeal to the stakeholders in the educational sector to consider other means of assessing students and stop tagging young people as failures just because of their inability to pass WAEC exams.

We finally call on affected students to remain calm, adhere to the rubrics of the exams and obey all directives from authority to complete their basic education peacefully.

Signed

Ali Tanti Robert

Director (0206125181, 0246486740)

Youth Alliance for Development is a registered youth oriented NGO in Obuasi with the sole aim of empowering young people to contribute meaningfully to the development aspirations of Ghana.