The ‘Cheating Squad’: How some high school authorities assist students to cheat in the WASSCE

A Corruption Watch investigation has uncovered grand schemes existing in some second-cycle institutions for assisting candidates to cheat in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

The investigation, conducted in the Ashanti and Bono regions of Ghana before and during the conduct of the 2021 WASSCE for School Candidates, revealed that some schools have instituted special levies which they charge students in return for help to solve examination questions.

Corruption Watch discovered at All For Christ Senior High/Technical School and Duadaso Number 1 Senior High/Technical School, both in the Bono Region, that the said levies are put in a pool and used to compromise teachers and invigilators to solve questions for students in the examination hall.

All For Christ Senior High/Technical School also charged special fees to award unearned continuous assessment marks to unqualified persons whom they register as school candidates to allow them to retake the WASSCE.

Agnes Norkor Teye-Cudjoe, head of Public Affairs at the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), disclosed to Corruption Watch that at the All For Christ Senior High/Technical School, WAEC’s “investigative team that was on the ground” detected and reported some incidents of malpractice. “So we have reports on malpractices that occurred at All for Christ,” she said.

In a two-page letter to Corruption Watch, Mr Owusu Gyaase, the Headmaster of All For Christ Senior High/Technical School, denied that the school charged fees for continuous assessment marks or engaged in examination malpractice.

On the other hand, Mr. Peterson Aning, the headmaster of Duadaso Number 1 Senior High/Technical School, did not offer a response to our findings in spite of indicating in a phone call that he would do so.

The investigation shows that school authorities, teachers, parents and security officials are all complicit in the school-based schemes that allow students to cheat at examination halls.

In addition, the content of some secretly recorded audio-visual materials indicates the involvement of some unidentified top officials of WAEC who allegedly help school authorities to perpetrate malpractices as well as escape sanctions.

Read the full CDD report below: