It was an all-boys affair as they mounted the podium last Tuesday to receive the award at this year’s Council Meeting in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Out of the three Ghanaian students who took the prestigious award, it was once again St James Seminary towering all, having picked two of the topmost awards of the 2023 WASSCE written by a total of 2,327,342 candidates from the five-member countries of the council.

Awardees

Amo-Kodieh Leonard Kofi Marton, formerly of St James Seminary Senior High School (SHS), who is currently reading Medicine at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, was adjudged the overall winner. He topped with a score of 623.5512.

Dzandu Selorm, formerly of the Labone SHS, now a medical student at the KNUST, took the second spot with a score of 623.1882, while another former St James Seminary SHS student, Daniel Asenso-Gyambibi, currently at the Ashesi University took the third place with 622.4438.

To be considered eligible for an Excellent Award, a candidate must obtain a grade A1 in at least eight subjects, including English, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Health Sciences and Integrated Science as well as one subject category of the core subjects.

Commendations

Commenting on the award, the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, Dr Eric Nkansah, congratulated the awardees for lifting the flag of Ghana high on such an international platform.

“We are proud of our students for their consistent performance at the WASSCE.

Last year, two out of the three were from Ghana and this year, we are here again and this time round, we are taking all the three awards,” he said.

Describing the performance as a source of pride for the GES and the country as a whole, Dr Nkansah said the performance of the students meant that, “We are doing something right.”

He thanked Ghanaian teachers and their head of school for their continuous sacrifices which were yielding positive results.

“To all teachers, I wish to say kudos to you all and the management of education, especially at the school level, I thank all of them for the yeoman’s job,” the Director-General said and urged them to continue to work harder for more awards.

He commended the management and teachers of the St James Seminary SHS for consistently producing award-winning students.

Exams malpractice

In a welcome address, the Chairman of the Council, Professor Ato Essuman, gave the assurance that the council was doing all it could to confront the menace of examination malpractice head-on.  

“It gives us much worry therefore when we hear of persistent incidence of examination malpractice in public examinations because it represents a threat to public confidence in the credibility of the examination system,” Prof. Essuman said.

He, therefore, appealed to all member countries and governments to support WAEC’s crusade to eliminate, the threat, and called on all stakeholders to join hands to address the menace.

Gratitude

In a speech, Mr Amo-Kodieh said he was, “highly elated and deem it a great honour and privilege to have been selected as the overall best student of the 2023 WASSCE”.

He said in all his pursuit of academic excellence, he had consistently demonstrated dedication to pushing forward his intellectual boundaries, embracing new challenges and actively participating in a dynamic learning environment.

Mr Amo-Kodieh was grateful to the government and all stakeholders for the immense support, “that has promoted this course of achievement to fruition.”

“We the awardees would like to reiterate our profound gratitude to the government, the GES, the Ministry of Education, the WAEC and particularly our families for the role each of them played in our education,” he said.