Address selection problems, GES

Last week, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) released provisional results of the April 2009 Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE). Although Ghanaians were not told of the general performance of the candidates, a release signed by the Public Affairs Manager of WAEC, Mrs. Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, revealed that 450 candidates had their subjects cancelled while 130 had their entire results cancelled.

The reasons assigned for the cancellations of the results, according to the release, indicate that the affected students were involved in various examination malpractices. Among these included cheating, sending of foreign materials into examination halls and seeking help from non-candidates.

Notwithstanding the fact that what has been released by WAEC is not the certified result, what is in the public domain gives cause to worry, especially looking at the number of students whose results have been cancelled.

Examination malpractices no matter which form they take must be condemned out rightly, and should not be allowed to grow with us as a people. That is why we all have a shared responsibility in inculcating into our children the essence of refraining from such negative practices.

The issue of ensuring that our children desist from cheating during examinations should not be left to only teachers in schools, but most importantly parents and the society at large. We believe that when the problem is looked at from such perspective it will go a long way to curb the menace.

Another problem that usually crops up anytime BECE results have been released in the country is getting admissions into Senior High Schools (SHS). In the past, parents go through a lot of hell to get gain admissions for their wards.

With the introduction of the Computerized School Selection and Placement System, many parents had the firm belief that they would no longer be made to travel from one region to the other to search for secondary schools for their children.

But unfortunately, this has not been the case. Our parents are still saddled with the problem of chasing headmasters and headmistress for admissions for their children.

And interestingly, the computerized system is also experiencing the same problems as was the case when the selection was done manually. There are even instances where students who gain admissions have often had their courses changed, for a course that they did not choose.

We are therefore urging the Ghana Education Service (GES) to put in place adequate measures to address the inherent problems in the computerized system to spare parents the hassle of travelling to get admissions for their children.