Editorial : 2020 WASSCE candidates have no justification to disappoint the nation

About 313,837 final year students from the various Senior High Schools in the country started their West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) yesterday. Students taking part in the exams are going to choose from 60 subjects, made up of four core and 56 electives.

In a statement released in Accra yesterday, the President wished all of them well. “I send my best wishes to the 313,837 final year Senior High School students, who will, from Monday, 20th July, take the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE),” the President remarked.

“Just as has been done over the course of the last four weeks since their return to school, I continue to urge everyone associated with the conduct of this year’s WASSCE, i.e. teaching and non-teaching staff, invigilators and students, to abide by the enhanced hygiene, mask wearing and social distancing protocols they have become accustomed to. They continue to remain our weapon in the fight to defeat COVID-19,” he stated.

This year’s examination is a unique one, because it is the products of the Akufo-Addo’s Free Senior School who are writing it. Though the Covid-19 really disturbed the timetable of these final year students, it is the hope of The Chronicle that they would write the exams and pass very well. One of the major obstacles that affects smooth learning for most of the students is the payment of school and exams fees.

The Akufo-Addo government has, however, lived up to expectation by paying their boarding, feeding, and exam fees. This means no student was denied access to feeding, lodging and other logistics that would have disturbed their studies.  It is based on this that The Chronicle thinks these students, who the President himself has described as ‘Akufo-Addo Graduates,’ have no excuse to disappoint the nation.

They have to write the examination and pass well to justify the huge investment the state has made in them. According to the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta, the government has so far spent over GH¢2.2 billion since the introduction of the free SHS policy.

Presenting the 2020 Budget to Parliament last year, he said the government, as at that time, was spending about GH¢2,312 on each SHS student per year. For those in year three, this translates into a saving of GH¢6,936 per parent for the three years their children have been in school, he added.

These huge expenditures could have gone to other sectors of the economy crying for help, but because of the importance the President and his government attach to education, which is the basics for the development of every country, they did not blink their eyes before releasing the money.

It is on the basis of this that we insist the 2020 WASSCE students should not disappoint the nation.

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