During the five participating nations’ West Africa Senior School Certificate Test (WASSCE) in 2022, GHANA once more dominated the list of top students.
In the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) International Excellence Award, which was held in the Gambian capital of Banjul, two senior high school (SHS) graduates who took part in the 2022 WASSCE outperformed their peers.
Awardees
At the St. James Seminary SHS in the Bono Region, Alex Opoku Manu and Benjamin Eyram Nana Kwame Degbey, respectively, defeated their Nigerian counterpart, Ogidigbo Chioma Blessing, who took third place. The WAEC Endowment Fund Prize was given to the three. Mr. Manu won $1,500 for coming in first, and Mr. Degbey received $1,200 for coming in second. In addition, Blessing received $900 for finishing third.
In addition, Mr. Manu was awarded the Augustus Bamidele Oyediran Award for being the exam’s top candidate overall in 2022.
The two have been designated as the top two candidates for the National Distinction Excellence Award for the WASSCE in June of this year.
Mr. Degbey is also studying Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the Academic City in Accra, while Mr. Manu is a student of medicine at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi.
The students were recognised for their outstanding achievement among the five participating countries at the award ceremony conducted during the 71st Annual Council Meeting of the West African Examination Council (WAEC).
The team from Ghana, which included WAEC council members, was led by Dr. Eric Nkansah, the Chief Government nominee and Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), as well as Wendy Enyonam Addy-Lamptey, the HNO.
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Recurring winners
After leaving the ceremony, Mrs. Addy-Lamptey briefed the Daily Graphic and thanked the honorees for raising the Ghanaian flag so high on an international stage.
Given that 297 out of the 2,276,112 individuals who took the WASSCE qualified for consideration for the excellence prizes, she claimed that the competition was fierce.
Ghana has consistently won the prize, according to Mrs. Addy-Lamptey, who expressed confidence that “you can be sure to see us here again next year.”
“As you may be aware, since the COVID-19 was disrupted, Ghana is using a transitional calendar. We have not yet established normalcy, in contrast to every other member nation.
By the 2024 academic year, she said, “we would have returned to normal and joined the other member countries to write the examination.”
Regarding exam fraud, Mrs. Addy-Lamptey stated that Ghana was committed to combating the problem and cited steps being taken, such as the use of the serialisation of exam questions.
To ensure that “together, we break the chain of those who engage in the malpractice, notably those operating rogue websites,” she stated that all of the member nations were committed to cooperating closely.
We have re-inspected the majority of our existing schools as well as new schools, according to Mrs. Addy-Lamptey, as part of our efforts to stop the practise.
When it came time to register for the WASSCE, she added, “we noted that the challenge of impersonation was mostly coming from the private schools.” She continued, “Even though most of the private schools did not have regular students, such schools would register remedial and out-of-school students as candidates.”
She continued, saying that because these students had a strong intent to cheat on the exam, WAEC was sanitising the registration process and that “a good registration will lead to a good examination.”
She continued, revealing that some of these institutions charged their students between GH4,000 and GH6,000. “If we do not have a good registration and enable all these people to be brought in, definitely they would want to go to whatever length to pass the tests,” she said.
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