The written papers of this year's West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for the second batch of final-year free senior high school students began smoothly throughout the country yesterday.

The examination began with Oral English with the observance of the COVID-19 safety protocols.

A total of 446,321 final-year SHS students are writing the 2021 WASSCE for school candidates across the country.

Even though the examination began on August 16, 2021 with practicals, yesterday, all the candidates took the paper which began at 8.30a.m.

The Daily Graphic visited some examination centres in Accra yesterday including Accra Academy, Accra High, St Thomas Aquinas and at the centres were Veronica buckets with tissue paper, soap and hand sanitiser.

Candidates, invigilators and supervisors were also seen in face masks.

They are made up of 221,437 males and 224,884 females from 965 public and private second cycle institutions.

The 2021 WASSCE statistics available to the Daily Graphic indicate that the public schools are 651 while the private ones are 314.

A total of 763 supervisors are at the 763 centres to invigilate the examination.

Accra Academy

At Accra Academy, an Assistant Headmaster, Mr Odame Adjei, told the Daily Graphic that a total 1,077 candidates were due to write the examination at the school.

According to him, the examination took place in five groups in order to accommodate all the candidates.

He said the fourth group was yet to record an absentee, adding that, “everything had been smooth so far”.

Some of the candidates who were part of the third group, said they did not have any problem with the audio for the examination.

Accra High

At the time of the visit to the Accra High School, the second batch of candidates had finished writing the paper.

As they entered the examination hall, they were searched thoroughly by invigilators.

An Assistant Headmistress, Ms Monica Botchway, said 1,146 candidates had registered for the examination.

However, she said there was one absentee.

Two candidates of the school: Prince and Felix, confirmed that the examination had been smooth.

WAEC

The Head of Public Affairs of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Mrs Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, said the council had not received any adverse report from any part of the country as far as the examination was concerned.

“Reports from across the country show that everything is going on well,” she emphasised.