The West African Examinations Council. (WAEC) is taking decisive measures to crack down on the registration of unqualified candidates for its school exams, particularly the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
Some parents, in collaboration with public schools, transfer their children from private schools to register and take the exams at these public institutions. Additionally, some parents conspire with school heads to register their Junior High School (JHS) one or two students with the final year students of a different school.
WAEC considers both practices as offenses, and if caught, the unqualified candidate’s results may be annulled, while public schools may face disciplinary actions from the Ghana Education Service (GES), and private schools risk being de-recognized as examination centers.
To tackle these challenges, WAEC has implemented new measures. In the future, they will use unique numbers for qualified candidates, making it impossible to register unqualified students. The data will be collected the previous year, and these unique numbers will ensure the authenticity of registrations.
Regarding examination malpractice, WAEC has reintroduced the serialization of question papers this year, which was first introduced last year. Serialization helps prevent rogue websites from flooding their platforms with supposed answers to objective questions, as they cannot determine which version of the paper a candidate has. This has reduced the activities of such rogue websites, although some are still advertising that they possess WAEC questions.