2023 WASSCE French oral examiners cry over unpaid allowance

Examiners who invigilated the 2023 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) French orals have expressed grief over the government’s inability to pay their allowance after seven months of the examination.

According to the aggrieved examiners, they have a contract with the West African

Examination Council (WAEC), which pays the invigilators when the government releases funds.

However, the West African Examination Council has chided the government for not releasing the funds to pay the examiners after fulfilling their part of the contract.

The affected examiners told the media, “We have an issue. The French examiners who took part in last year’s French orals for WASSCE have still not been paid for almost 7 months now. Per WAEC, the government hasn’t paid them yet."

Detailing how the French orals are conducted, the examiners explained that WAEC schedules them to invigilate the French oral papers outside their region of residence with little money to cover their transport and other expenses.

“In 2023, some of us in the Eastern Region were posted to the Volta Region on invigilation duty. WAEC offers us money for the journey, and your accommodation is factored in if the host school can’t provide your accommodation," they explained.

“Anyone travelling is vulnerable to accident, and the life of the invigilators is at risk during the journey from their regions to the examination centres because they may be involved in an accident.”

Narrating their ordeal, they mentioned that the invigilators include pensioners whose other source of finance depends on the annual invigilation, and a delay in payment would make them withdraw from the subsequent WAEC exams.

“Some of our invigilators are Ghana Education Service (GES) workers on retirement who support themselves with their experience and also support themselves with the allowance. They may opt out of the invigilation if the government continues to disappoint them," they said.

The invigilators, therefore, entreated the government to commit to its part of the contract by releasing money to allow WAEC to pay them.