This is on the grounds that the other four-member nations of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) — Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia — have gotten back to the previous May/June schedule and had administered the WASSCE for their various candidates from May 9 to June 24, this year.
The four nations have had their academic schedules smoothed out to make way for them to sit the examination in May/June, as Ghana adheres to the 'new normal' schedule brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
Despite the late sitting, Ghanaian candidates in any case go after the National Distinction Award and the WAEC Excellence Award with candidates from those nations.
The head of WAEC Ghana National Office Mrs Wendy Enyonam Addy-Lamptey, said Ghanaian candidates will still compete for the National Distinction and WAEC Excellence awards.
These awards are usually competed for by all the candidates from the five-member countries of WAEC.
Semester framework
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, Mrs Addy-Lamptey made sense of the fact that since candidates in the country began their academic year on February 7, this year, because of the new semester framework, they couldn't buy into the examination.
She further explained that, considering the start of the 2022 academic year, the time was very short for the possibility of candidates to sit the exam in May/June.
"The time was too short and our candidates could not have possibly and satisfactorily be ready for the examinations thus, the Ministry of Education mentioned that it be organized for them in August and September 2022.
"Following from that, Ghanaian final year students will sit for a Ghana-only version of the WASSCE for School Candidates, beginning from August 1 and finishing on September 27," she made sense of.
Mrs Addy alleged that unscrupulous websites and tricksters had proactively acquired depictions of past question papers for WASSCE 2022 written in the other countries and were utilizing those previews to publicize their sites.
"Some have even asked candidates to enroll by paying a charge. We are telling the public that the examination being organized is made up of virtually different sets of questions from the papers written in the other WAEC four- member countries.
Head of the National Office of WAEC, notwithstanding, added that the questions would absolutely be of a similar in difficult level and gave a confirmation that "all post-examination plans will be taken care of universally".
"For instance, the Standard Fixing and Grading Awards gatherings will have delegates from the five member nations," she said.
A sum of 422,883 candidates from 977 schools enlisted for the WASSCE after the lengthy shutting date of April 8, 2022.
The passage figure included 72 competitors with visual impairment, comprised of 39 guys and 33 females, as well as 14 candidates with hearing weakness.
Mrs Addy-Lamptey explained that 60 subjects, involving four core and 56 electives, would be administered to candidates
"Additionally to the four core subjects that all candidates write, candidates also have the choice to choose up to four elective subjects from the seven programs offered in senior secondary schools," she further made sense of.
She went on to explain that WAEC used devoted facilities for the keeping of secret and confidential materials in all the communities, and assured that "such offices have been assessed and the vital stronghold and renovation works are being finished to guarantee that they meet the security necessities".
"This year, the number of stations has been expanded to lessen the time taken in moving question papers from the stops to the communities, pushing the terminals nearer to the examination centers," she said to the Daily Graphic.
The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, likewise in a meeting, made sense of that the country was doing a time of recuperation learning and is unable to return to the May/June schedule right away.
He said that Ghana was specific about contact hours for final year students and could, not get back to the May/June period immediately, taking into account the time the 2022 academic year started.
He went on to say that when Ghana changed from the single track to the twofold track, "we ensured that we didn't lose contact hours, so we determined the quantity of contact hours that must be finished inside a given year".
"Thus, for a given year, the computation was that we planned to do 1,134 contact hours. So following the COVID-19, what we did was that we expected to return to do that estimation, and when we ran the numbers, we understood that the earliest time we could sit for the examination was a few time in August and September."
In any case, the other four countries, regardless of whatever, chose to go ahead of us. They returned to their schools sooner than February, and following the examination in 2021, they switched to the old framework. We utilized our recuperation period and afterward our contact hours to do our estimation, Prof. Opoku-Amankwa said.
In 2020, the worldwide flare-up of the COVID-19 pandemic constrained WAEC member nations to move the WASSCE from May/June to July 20 to September 5, 2020, and in 2021 the examination was conducted from August 16 to October 8.
After 2021, the other four member countries attempted to smooth out their academic schedules to get back to the May/June schedule for the examination.
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