Teachers in exam infractions unacceptable

Since last year, the impact of rogue websites on the national terminal examinations has been minimal, thanks to the various innovations introduced by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).

Notable among these innovations is serialisation, where candidates in the same examination hall receive the same question, but with different question numbers. This effectively ensures the integrity of the examination and prevents any compromise or external interference in the selected subjects.

This gave WAEC and the public some hope that at least, for the first time in recent years, the examination would pass without the usual hue and cry of examination leakage and other wrongdoing.

So, just as WAEC could celebrate this achievement in dealing with examination malpractice, an embarrassing one, where teachers, who are supposed to teach the children time-tested values such as honesty, respect and humility, are the ones leading the way.

Last year, WAEC picked up a number of teachers engaging in examination malpractice. As though that was not enough, within the first two days of this year’s BECE, a total of 16 teachers, some of whom were invigilators and supervisors, were picked up because of various examination infractions.

All of them were picked up at various examination centres by the National Investigations Bureau (NIB) and local agents recruited by the WAEC, at a time they were either busily assisting the candidates in the examination halls or caught solving the examination questions for the candidates. Obviously, hundreds of such teachers escaped the vigilant eyes of the NIB and the WAEC-recruited agents.

Admittedly, teachers involving themselves in examination malpractice did not just emerge last year. However, the focus was on they receiving external assistance from the rogue website operators.

With the serialisation, where the numbering of the questions differs from one centre to the other, teachers from schools that produce candidates for the examination throng to centres where their candidates are to engage in examination infractions.

In 2021, during the BECE, WAEC security and the police allegedly caught a female teacher collecting money from the candidates while distributing the Social Studies answer booklets.

According to the source, when the teacher was questioned, she admitted collecting the money, but explained that the candidates decided to contribute the money under no compulsion Last year, there were reports of some final-year students in some schools paying some money, allegedly meant to influence and compromise the examination officials to allow the teachers to assist their candidates to perform well.

The Daily Graphic is disappointed with this trend of development and wonders if this is a testimony that the teachers are not teaching well or that they do not complete the various syllabi before the conduct of the examination and so, in order not to be blamed they engage in such activities.

However, during the examination, the Head of National Office of WAEC, Wendy Enyonam Addy-Lamptey, had cause to admonish schools’ proprietors and headmasters to allow their candidates to write the papers without any interference or attempt to help them in the examination halls.  

The Daily Graphic, therefore, reminds parents and teachers that they have a crucial role to play in the taking of the examination to ensure that the candidates appreciate hard work and honesty. We appeal to parents not to give their children the wrong impression that they can do anything under the sun and get away with it.

The Daily Graphic wishes to propose to WAEC, through the National Teaching Council and the Ministry of Education, to ensure that any teacher caught in such examination infractions should have his or her licence revoked.

Such a punitive measure, we believe, will be deterrent enough to put the fear of the devil into them because, whatever money they get through such examination infractions cannot be comparable to their hard-earned monthly salary.

As teachers and parents, it is our responsibility to teach the children to appreciate hard work and respect the rule of law.

Teachers are role models to the children put under their care, and society expects that the teachers remain as such. Anything short of that will be a blot on them.

WAEC has worked hard to block the loophole of the activities of rogue website operators so for teachers to step into the shoes of these operators is simply unacceptable. Such teachers must bow their heads in shame.

As the nation prepares for the 2024 West African Senior School Certificate Examination in less than a month from now let the experience of the BECE guide us moving forward.
Let all of us, together with WAEC, resolve to ensure an incident-free WASSCE.