The Upper West Regional Controller of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Donald Tuor, has expressed concern about the involvement of teachers and supervisors in examination malpractice in the ongoing Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).

He said the teachers aided the candidates to cheat in the examination by solving the questions and placing them in examination halls or pre-arranged places for the candidates to pick up.

The WAEC Regional Controller stated that some candidates had been caught with foreign materials in their possession, while others had exchanged their question papers.

Modus

In an interview with the Daily Graphic, Mr Tuor said: “The teachers would hide in bushes, solve the questions, drop them in the examination halls for the candidates or place them in toilets for the candidates to go for them.”

He said because the candidates had already been informed by the teachers about where to find the solved questions, “the candidates also know when and where to go for them.”

Mr Tuor stated that many of the supervisors and invigilators had been compromised and were assisting the candidates in cheating, which he found rather unfortunate.

Usually, he said, when candidates were found with foreign materials or to be cheating, they were made to fill a form to confirm that they were caught in the infraction and witnessed by the supervisor, after which they were allowed to continue to write the rest of the papers.

For the teachers, he said their names had been submitted to the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to deal with them.

Other incidents

On the whole, Mr Tuor said the examination was going on smoothly with the exception of pockets of cheating and swapping of question papers.

He said last Friday, there was a bee invasion of  Wa School for the Deaf, where two candidates were stung and rushed to hospital.

He said one of the victims, a girl, was detained and was unable to write the second paper for the day but the boy was treated and discharged.