The Ghana National Council of Private Schools (GNACOPS) has maintained that the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) is not positioned to assess students under the new curriculum.
GNACOPS shares the view with the Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Adutwum, that Ghana’s education and WAEC assessment system are more of writing and passing exams and do not meet the modern trends of education.
According to the Council of Private Schools, there is no need to maintain WAEC as a sole mandatory examination body under the ministry of education for assessment and that it has outlived its usefulness as an examination body.
In an interview Alfred Ocansey on 3FM Sunrise Morning Show on Monday 26 September, 2022 the Executive Director of GNACOPS, Mr. Gyetuah explained that WAEC-Ghana was established about 70 years ago, that is even before Ghana obtained independence as an accreditation agency to certify prospective students who wanted to travel outside the country for further studies to meet the requirement of the foreign schools.
“Assessment is one of the critical components of education which are Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment (CIA). Over ten years down the line, exams malpractices and leakages have characterized the operations of WAEC which have marred the integrity of the assessment that it conducts” he stressed
“The pen and paper type of examination is not what we are looking for as a nation. The Europeans established the ‘Objective Base Education’ whose main activities were reading and writing to facilitate communication and trade.” Gyetuah added
Mr. Kwame Gyetuah stated further that a new curriculum has been introduced since 2018 which is known as the competence based portfolio building which provides continues assessment and data on students so there is no need for a twelve years wait before a student is assessed on what she or he has learned for that long period.
“How would a child who has lost his or her hand but knowledgeable be able to pass the written exams? So as an assessment institution, if you don’t meet the developing trend in terms of education, then there is no need to maintain you” he asserted
He recalled that WAEC did a press conference and alluded to the fact that private schools are spearheading impersonation. Putting it in an omnibus that it is the private schools that are culprits is problematic.
The executive director questioned if WAEC has been able to establish that any of the people they arrested belong to any category of stakeholders in the private school sector whether a teacher, proprietor or a parent of a student in a private school.
“Before conducting the exam, WAEC took the pictures of all the potential candidates and collected their biodata of which it was expected that the exams council would use to eradicate the impersonation or these kinds of malpractices. How then does WAEC come out as a gatekeeper to still complain?” he queried
By Samuel Afriyie Owusu|3news.com|Ghana