HELP DISCOURAGE EXAMINATION MALPRACTICE — WAEC TELLS SCHOOL HEADS (PAGE 11)

A senior Deputy Registrar of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Mrs Veronica Bampoh, has called on heads of institutions to help discourage the practice of procuring leaked examination question papers for their students.
Mrs Bampoh, who was speaking at a seminar organised by WAEC for heads of institutions, said the practice was dangerous, since it could defeat the government’s policy of providing quality education.
She said it had also come to the notice of WAEC that some headmasters and teachers on examination days hid at some places to answer questions sneaked out of examinations halls for students to copy.
She warned that since that constituted examination malpractice, heads and teachers found engaged in the practice would be handed over to the police for the law to deal with them.
Mr Paul Amuah, a lecturer of Basic Education of the University of Cape Coast, who delivered a paper on “Instructional Resources As A Critical Factor for Quality Education’’ at the seminar, said the shortage of instructional materials was affecting the delivery of quality education in the country.
He said despite educational reforms that included the Accelerated Development Plan, the Kwapong and the Dobo Committee, all aimed at addressing, these problems ended up creating “a hordes of late teenage school leavers, the majority of whom were deficient in basic numeracy and literacy”.
Mr Amuah said the products of these schools also were deficient in science and technology, as well as craftsmanship and technical skills needed for rapid socio-economic advancement.
He stressed that the problem of unemployed youth was still prevalent in the country and pointed out that in addition to the spate of unemployment there was growing indiscipline and corruption from the highest to the lowest levels of society that threatened the very survival of the nation.
He called on civil society groups and consortiums to pool resources to complement the efforts of the government by donating instructional materials to schools for quality teaching.
Mr Amuah said the provision of instructional materials was a complete industry in itself, which required technical skills and funds, adding that the cost of weighing scale needed for teaching weights and measurement in schools costs GH¢25 on the open market.