WASSCE leaks: EduWatch monitored 'ghost' schools; alleged leaks fake – WAEC

The West African Examination Council (WAEC) has described it as non-existent, some schools that think tank Africa Education Watch (EduWatch) claimed it monitored and witnessed widespread leakages of the 2021 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) papers.

In its 2021 WASSCE Monitoring report, the education think tank said 55 percent of the 20 papers it sampled leaked within 10 hours before the start of the exam.

It said one practical paper even leaked five days earlier.

EduWatch also said it was able to buy questions and answers from some open telegram channels that had over 200,000 subscribers, for between GHS30 and GHS150.

Presenting the report, the Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Mr. Kofi Asare, said: “Out of the 20 papers we monitored, 55% of them leaked, 45% of them did not leak. All the 20 papers were circulated. Out of those circulated, 55% of them had the questions appearing in full or parts in the examination”.

He continued: “Food and Nutrition, for example, leaked. We blew the whistle and WAEC held a press conference on the 15th of September, threatening to sue us”.

EduWatch has also petitioned the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service to probe the matter.

Responding to the EduWatch’s claims, Mrs. Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, Head of Public Affairs at WAEC, said most of the claims of the think tank were false.

“The council has reviewed the contents of the report and has observed that most of the issues raised in the reports, were matters that had engaged the attention of the council during the conduct of the examination and has consequently been addressed during the council’s first and second updates on the exam”, she told journalists at a press conference on Friday, 5 November 2021.

Also, she noted, “the council will want to call attention to some inaccuracies contained in the EduWatch report to set the records straight”.

“According to the report, ‘A sample frame of 100 schools from which EduWatch received information on alleged examination malpractices during the 2020 WASSCE was drawn. Out of this, 50 schools, which were examinations centres, were purposively selected based on our ability to undertake a successful entry and monitoring’”, she quoted.

She continued: “A list of 50 schools that were monitored was provided at page 30 of the report. We observe that: 1. Inssaniya Senior High School, which is number 12 on the list of schools that was reported to have been monitored by EduWatch, does not currently exist. The school was closed down in January 2021. No candidate was registered by Inssaniya SHS for the WASSCE 2021 neither was the school used as an examination centre. So, we don’t know where his monitors went to monitor Nsaniya SHS”.

“2. Beposoman Muslim SHS; that is also not on the council’s list of participating schools for the exam. Rather, the list of schools that we have for the examination includes Ghana Muslim Mission Schools, Beposo; that is number 4. So, I think we’ll need further clarification on that,” she added.

“Yet still, the council does not have any record of Kikam Senior High Technical School; that is number 14, on its list of schools for the WASSCE,” Mrs. Teye-Cudjoe pointed out.

She said, “the council has taken serious notice of the allegations made in the report of malpractices in certain schools and would probe the issue further to ascertain the veracity or otherwise of the claims made.”

Zeroing on the specifics of the alleged leakages, Mrs. Teye—Cudjoe said: “Food and Nutrition paper III; this is one of the papers that EduWatch claimed leaked and we find it baffling that Mr. Kofi Asare continues to refer to this paper as having leaked when he was the very person that forwarded the fake paper to us,” adding: “One wonders why Mr. Kofi Asare will send false information when he had the actual.”

“Two; English Language II and Mathematics Elective II: In the case of these two papers, the office had indicated in its second update that was addressed by the Head of Tests Administration held on 21 August 2021 that after scrutiny of the several versions received, we detected that extracts of the questions were included in the versions that had been received earlier by our monitoring team from various social media platforms and Telegram channels.”

“The council’s security tracked and arrested Jones Alema, his real name is Godfred Darko; the source of the hand-written questions for Mathematics Elective II and handed him over to the police,” she noted.

She said investigations are ongoing on that matter.

“With Physics II and I, on 15 September 2021, the council, as we are all aware, rescheduled Physics II and I because our underground intelligence picked up signals that the paper was compromised,” noting: “The rescheduled paper was conducted successfully on 1 September 2021. So, we also took action on the Physics II and I papers.”

“Biology III practical, Alternative A: This is also one of the papers that EduWatch claimed leaked. Mathematics Core II and I; Economics II and Integrated Science II; all the above papers, a number of questions were posted on WhatsApp groups, rogue websites, and Telegram channels. Our checks indicated that they were fake.”

“The marking of scripts is, however, ongoing and any irregularities detected will be investigated and scrutinised,” she promised.