WAEC demands further details on claims of exam leaks in 2021 WASSCE

The West African Examination Council (WAEC) is calling on education think tank, Africa Education Watch, to provide further details on its claims of exam malpractice in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

The Public Relations Officer of WAEC, Agnes Teye Cudjoe noted that a number of the schools cited in EduWatch’s report were not in operation or did not partake in the WASSCE.

WAEC cited the Insaaniya, Beposoman and Kikam Senior High Schools in this regard.

“Insaaniya Senior High School does not currently exist. The school was closed down in January 2021. No candidate was registered by Inssaniya Senior High School for the WASSCE 2021 neither was the school used as an examination centre.”

“We wish to ask EduWatch to give us further clarifications because we have taken note of some of the issues he raised in the report.”

Nonetheless, WAEC has still committed to probing the claims made by EduWatch.

“We wish to further state that the council has taken note of the serious allegations made in the report of malpractices in certain schools, and we will probe the issue further to ascertain the veracity or otherwise of the claims made.”

Africa Education Watch in its report claimed it had uncovered an exam leaks syndicate that includes teachers, students, and security personnel.

Out of the 20 WASSCE papers sampled for Africa Education Watch’s monitoring, it said 55 percent leaked within 10 hours of the start of the exam, with one practical paper leaking five days earlier.

The education think tank earlier petitioned the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) over alleged leaks in the  2021 WASSCE.

This was after the West African Examinations Council announced that extracts of questions for the elective Mathematics 2 paper and Section ‘A’ of English Language 2, were circulated on some social media platforms prior to the examination.

WAEC however said the circulation was not extensive.