Wishing Our WASSCE Candidates Good Luck!

This year, the West African Senior School Certificate Examination has started across the country with practicals.

A total of 316,985 candidates are taking part in the exams, up from the 289,207 who participated in the exams last year.

The exams are taking place in 946 Senior High Schools in all ten regions of Ghana and expected to be supervised by a total of 946 supervisors and 10,566 invigilators and we hope and believe that the examinations are in safer hands: free from malfeasance and practices that tend to undermine the credibility of the WASSCE certificates and our future human resources.

It is our hope that the caution by the WAEC against examination malpractices would be taken seriously by the students as well as the supervisors and invigilators.

It is our expectation that the measures instituted by WAEC would work to perfection to ensure incident free examinations.

The Ghanaian Times is of the firm conviction that our students are adequately prepared for the examinations such that the candidates would not resort to "short cuts" to success by indulging in unethical behaviours unbecoming of students worth their salt .

Examination leakages, copying in examination halls and smuggling of foreign materials in the examination hall are unlawful. Indeed, everyone is tired of the perennial examination malpractices that have resulted in cancellation of examination papers, especially when such cancellation affected innocent candidates.

While we wish our WASSCE well in their examinations, we wish to also associate ourselves with the admonition by the WAEC officials to the candidates to play by the rules of the game to ensure an incident free examination to enhance credibility and the quality of our results.

We also urge WAEC to also conduct self introspection by tightening all the loopholes to make it unprofitable for unscrupulous public servants who would want to cheat the system at the expense of the general good.

We are also concerned about the mass failure in English and Mathematics and urge stakeholders to research and come up with solutions to improve the teaching of Mathematics and English as well as the sciences.

No doubt Mathematics, Science and English are the foundation stone of our socioeconomic development, and efforts must be intensified to make the subjects interesting so that students will pass them well to facilitate their progress in life.

It is not being suggested that other subjects are not important but we want to underline the fact that candidates easily pass in other subjects more than the Mathematics and English which are compulsory subjects.

The candidates must be reminded that good times await them. They must take the opportunities available, especially with the introduction of the Free Senior High School Policy, to improve their lot and be useful to society.

While we may not have an alternative to assessing students we seem to dwell more on examination as yardstick for success in life, giving rise to the perennial examination malpractices, because candidates are eager to pass at all cost.

It is time to begin to think about other forms of examining students in order to take away the exams phobia and the tendency of cheating.

We wish all candidates every success in their examinations, and once more remind them that success in life is through hard work!

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