Member of Parliament for North Tongu Constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Blakwa has expressed his discomfort with a statement by the Ghana Education Service (GES) on purported leakage of questions of the 2020 West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination papers yet to be written.
Mr. Ablakwa said attempts by the GES to “create an impression that annual reports of examination leakage is a normal development” in the statement is worrying and unacceptable.
The former Deputy Minister of Education is of the view that the statement by the GES does not address “the fundamental issue, neither does it engender the much needed confidence or reassurance.”
While calling on government to sanction an independent investigation into the matter, he stated the need for proactive measures to be taken to safeguard the credibility of the country’s education and “the sanctity of the certificate issued.”
“It is imperative that Government commissions an independent investigation into these reports and take more proactive steps to safeguard the image of Ghana’s education and the sanctity of certificates issued.”
The Ghana Education Service (GES) issued a press release on August 1, 2020 denying leakage of the 2020 WASSCE question papers scheduled to be written on Monday August 3, 2020 following the circulation of some Integrated Science questions on social media purported to be questions of the yet-to-be written 2020 WASSCE Integrated Science paper.
The leakage some social media users claimed was deliberately carried out to enhance the students’ chances of passing the examination for political gains.
The GES in the release, however, denied any leakage of the on-going WASSCE question papers describing the circulated question papers as fake. It stated in the release that annual reports of purported examination leakage has become ritual and therefore urged the general public not to be misled by “any propagandist seeking to achieve mischievous objectives.” It added that the subjects written by Ghanaian WASSCE candidates do not include the purported leaked paper titled General Paper.
Reacting to this in a post on a social media, Mr. Ablakwa said the alleged leaked paper is Integrated Science and not the General Paper as claimed by the GES.
“Surprisingly, the GES statement makes the claim that the subjects being reported to have leaked is General Paper when everyone knows the matter in issue relates to Integrated Science which is scheduled to be written on Monday.”
Meaning while, the West African Examination Council (WAEC) in a different statement blamed the alleged leakage of papers on activities of rogue websites and Whatsapp group operators stating that it has “alerted the BNI, CID and the national Security about the threats posed by these groups.”
