Blame WAEC and its agencies for the leakages of exams papers – Dr Clement Apaak

The Minority in Parliament has filed a private members’ motion for the House to set up a bi-partisan committee to probe alleged irregularities and leakages of exams conducted by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) in the last 10 years.

According to the sponsors of the motion, as the years go by, issues of leakages and misconduct during WAEC examinations have heightened; thus, it is time the people’s representatives investigate.

Deputy Ranking on the education committee, Dr Clement Apaak argued that parliament through the probe can establish the source of leakages and offer solutions to help eliminate malpractices.

He said “the level of leakages and malpractices have reached a stage where if actions are not taken, we will be graduating to a level where WAEC issued certificates will lose their value, not only in Ghana.”

Dr Apaak said that even though the CID and police have been tasked to investigate they cannot be entirely independent, since some personnel are made to escort the papers from WAEC’s strongroom, where papers are kept, to the centres.

He added that WAEC is also not capable of conducting an investigation because it is complacent, neither can the Ministry of Education nor the Ghana Education Service be entirely neutral if they issue a probe.

“We (minority) don’t want to be seen as being partisan or petty, that is why we have given a wide range from 2011 to 2021. What we need to do is to look at the causal factors over time. We need to know how the papers leak and who are the beneficiaries of the leakages?”

“So we ought to hold people accountable. People, who are being paid to ensure the integrity of WAEC exam, for the sake of their own greed have become part of a cabal to leak papers through online portals for personal gain. We isolate them and hold them responsible,” Dr Apaak added.

This follows confirmation by WAEC that some papers were leaked in the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE). The examination body later rescheduled some papers that had supposedly leaked.