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The Ghana Only version of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for School Candidates (SC) took off smoothly across the country with English Orals yesterday.
Owing to the large numbers, candidates were grouped to write the paper. However, the candidates were searched thoroughly by invigilators before being allowed into the examination halls.
There was also a heavy security presence at the examination centres that are also being used for the ongoing voters’ exhibition exercise.
They included personnel from the Police Service, Fire Service, Prisons and the Immigration Service. The 2024 candidates are the sixth batch of beneficiaries of the free senior high school (SHS) programme.
This is the third consecutive time Ghana is taking the WASSCE independently, having adopted a new calendar that was occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The other four member countries making up the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) - Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia - have already reverted to the May/June calendar and sat their WASSCE-SC.
In all, 460,611 candidates, made up of 212,954 males and 247,657 females from 1,003 schools, are sitting the examination at 1,000 centres across the country.
The conduct of the examination was generally smooth at some of the centres the Daily Graphic visited in Accra yesterday. They included Accra High School, St Thomas Aquinas Senior High School (SHS) and Labone SHS.
At Accra High School, which also had a voters’ exhibition centre, the first of three batches of candidates was writing the paper at 9 a.m. when the Daily Graphic team arrived.
The Assistant Supervisor at the centre, Fred Oppong Ampofo, said the total candidature was 719, and that number was divided into three to sit for 45 minutes per session.
The males, he said, were 337, with the rest being females.
It also had one hearing and speech impaired candidate.
"Until we finish we would not know the number of absentees. Everything is okay and all the materials are available," he said.
One of the candidates, Alfred Akuffo, said the paper was manageable. At St Thomas Aquinas Senior High School where 710 candidates are writing the WASSCE-SC, the third of the four batches was writing at the time of the visit.
The Headmaster of the school, Amoasi Baidoo, said everything was smooth and indicated that Information and Communications Technology (ICT) practicals would be written today.
He also said he would not be able to identify the number of absentees until all the candidates had finished writing the paper. A candidate, Edmund Boakoh, said although the Orals was okay, he found it difficult to hear some of the words from the audio.
He, however, expressed the hope of excelling. Labone SHS had 1,444 candidates who were also divided into four batches.
The candidates used the assembly and dining halls for the examination. The Headmistress, Rejoice Acolor, said everything was going on smoothly at the time of the visit.
Meanwhile, WAEC has assured all stakeholders and members of the public that all the necessary test security measures had been put in place to ensure the examination was conducted successfully.
It, however, noted with concern grand schemes by some institutions to engage in mass cheating during the examination.
“Intelligence information picked up indicates that candidates in some parts of the country are being charged sums of money between GH¢200 and GH¢500 to receive assistance from invigilators; supervisors at some centres are planning to assign teachers to invigilate subjects they teach; some schools have registered persons who are not their bona fide students,” the statement said.
The council also cautioned heads of schools, supervisors and invigilators to desist from the practice as those involved would be dealt with according to the rules and regulations of the examination.
It said the council would not hesitate to nullify the entries of such candidates and those who would manage to sneak in would have their entire results cancelled, if found out.
