WAEC begins stakeholder engagements to address student disturbances at Bright SHS

Consultative engagements into circumstances that compelled students of the Bright Senior High School (SHS) at Kukurantumi in the Eastern Region to attack examination officers supervising the ongoing West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) at the school have begun.

The attack has left some of the officials and a journalist wounded and hospitalised.

Ghana’s examination management body, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has disclosed that it is among other things considering intensifying security at the school to avert similar violence in the future.

Public Relations Officer of WAEC, Agnes Teye Cudjoe in an interview on Eyewitness News indicated that management of the council will by Friday, August 7, 2020, conclude on its next line of action.

“Management has started engaging to look at the best solution going forward in the disturbances that occurred. Because as much as possible, we need to protect the lives of the internal WAEC officials and external supervisors at the centres. So we will make the final decision tomorrow and communicate it to the public”, she said.

Proprietor of the school, Bright Amponsah, who has been accused of inciting students was reportedly upset the officials had tightened security during the examination.

Nii Djan Mensah, the WAEC official supervising the Kukurantumi and Tafo Zones, explained that vigilance had been heightened because of purported malpractices being supported by teachers of the school.

Mr. Mensah recounted that on Monday when the integrated science paper was being written, he discovered some evidence of cheating in a urinal in the school.

Then in one of the exam halls, he says he also found foreign materials under the desk of one of the candidates though the invigilator, one of the teachers in the school, pretended not to see it.

Mr. Mensah said he then tried to retrieve the material the teacher hurriedly took it and “before I realize, he had put it in his mouth and he started chewing it.”

Because of what happened on Monday, WAEC decided not to allow any of the school’s teachers near the examination centres.

Increase in student misconduct

This is not the first time such a violent incident has been recorded.

With the examination in its early days, there have been a number of reports about student-agitation over what some describe as tight security and supervision of the exercise.

Some students of Tweneboa Kodua Senior High School at Kumawu in the Ashanti Region on Monday threatened to boycott the exams saying their school authorities were being ‘too strict’ during the supervision of their first paper.

A video footage from that school earlier this week saw students rioting and toppling school properties including furniture over the same allegation.

But, WAEC says it has begun investigations into these allegations of examination malpractices.

The sub-regional examination body tells Citi News that teachers in some schools have been implicated in the misconduct resulting in the student-agitations recorded in some areas.

The WAEC Branch Controller in the Ashanti Region, Divine Worlanyo Agbenyo said schools stand the risk of having their entire papers cancelled if found culpable.