This year, Ghana will take part in the May-June West African Senior School Certificate Examination for School Candidates (WASSCE-SC) alongside four other West African nations.
This comes five years after Ghana had a difficult time passing the pre-tertiary exam.
Ghana is scheduled to return to the May-June WASSCE-SC this year, according to Professor Ernest Kofi Davis, Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), who confirmed this to the Daily Graphic.
“Yes, we are returning to the international exams, so we are writing May-June with the other West African countries,” he stressed.
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) member nations were compelled by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to reschedule the WASSCE-SC from May–June to July 20–September 5, 2020, and from August 16–October 8, 2021.
Following 2021, all of the other WAEC members—Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia—made an attempt to simplify their academic schedules so that the examination would once again take place in May or June.
However, applicants from Ghana will take the exam alongside other WAEC members after five years of writing the Ghana Only Version of the WASSCE-SC. The exam starts with the practical or project work next month.
According to the GES Director-General, the nation began preparing last year to match its WASSCE-SC calendar so that it may take the test alongside other WAEC members.
Prof. Davis told the newspaper last Thursday on the fringes of the 2025 WAEC Distinction Awards that schools nationwide had been notified to get applicants ready for the test.
He said he hoped Ghanaian applicants would place in the top three.
“That is our hope, that is our belief. We are encouraging our students to do their best to continue to keep Ghana in the limelight,” he stated.
The head of GES advised applicants to give it their all and not anticipate outside assistance since it wouldn’t be available anyhow, given Ghana’s return to the worldwide exam.
“They should work hard; they can do it. So, we admonish them to study very hard and then do their best in the exams, and then success would definitely be theirs.”
“We are encouraging the teachers to support them to prepare very well to pass their exams and pass very well by themselves,” Prof. Davis said.
The GES Director-General urged the applicants to study so that their results would accurately reflect their academic talents and cautioned them against any kind of exam misconduct.
He stated that this would enable the government to assess the effectiveness of the educational system.
WAEC declared in March 2020 that WASSCE-SC would be suspended until further notice.
In a memo dated March 19, 2020, WAEC stated that the suspension was in accordance with the detrimental effects of the dangerous and new COVID-19 and the measures implemented by the government to stop its spread.
357,737 candidates were registered by WAEC to take the WASSCE in April at the time.
As decided by the national offices, WAEC claims that the detrimental effects of COVID-19 and the consequent measures put in place by the governments of member nations to stop the disease’s spread had a significant impact on how WASSCE-SC 2020 was conducted.
Source: newsthemegh.com