TEACHER, CANDIDATE NABBED FOR WASSCE MALPRACTICE

Two persons in Kumasi in the Ashanti region have been arrested by the Police for allegedly indulging in malpractices in the ongoing West African Secondary Schools Certificate Examination, WASSCE being written by final year Senior High School students. 

The Police, together with the WAEC office in Kumasi, are on the heels of the Headmaster of the Ascension SHS and another Teacher named as Collins said to be very instrumental in the malpractice.

 The arrest was done in connection with the writing of the English Literature yesterday, Wednesday April 8, at the Opoku Ware Girls Senior High Technical School exam Centre near Kumasi. 

The Centre is hosting candidates from two schools. These are those from the same school and those from the Ascension Senior High School, a private second cycle school near the Sawua Junction also near Kumasi. 

 They, together with two other persons from the same school who are being pursued by the Police and the WAEC, allegedly violated regulations of the conduct of the ongoing examinations by indulging in certain malpractices.

 Miss Priscilla Brefo Adu, who is also a candidate in the exam said she did not have a paper to write on the day in question. 

She decided to use her leisure to hunt for mangoes on the premises of the exam centre. 

According to her, her teacher, Madam Esther Boakyewaa gave her some papers with supposed answers to all the questions to Paper Two of the English Literature that was being written to be sent to some of the school’s candidates at the exam hall and she obliged. She said dropped the papers through the window of the exam hall. 

Incidentally, they fell on the table of the inter supervisor who caused her arrest by the Police officer on standby. 

This led to the arrest of Madam Esther Boakyewaa, the English Literature teacher of the same school who was on the centre’s premises to support her children who were writing the Paper. 

Madam Boakyewaa admitted sending the girl to deliver the prepared answers to her children at the exam hall. 

According to her, a colleague teacher in her school gave it to her to be given to her candidates to aid their success in the exam.

 Madam Boakyewaa noted also that the said colleague teacher used her phone in receiving the WASSCE questions from another person since that teacher’s complained that he complained that he could not read the information from his phone.

 Incidentally, the Ascension SHS is seriously pursuing a WAEC approval to use its premises as the centre for WAEC-organized exams. 

The three main suspects in the matter were arrested by the Police in charge of the exam and handed over them to the Zongo Police in Kumasi. However, the Police granted them enquiry bail to report back today but the Headmaster failed to turn up.

 The Proprietor of the school who stood in for them is being asked to produce the Headmaster.

 The Kumasi Branch Controller of WAEC, Mr. Alex Boapim Bosompim, hinted that information retrieved from the mobile phone of the Headmaster suggests that there is a collaborator elsewhere for which further investigation has started. 

Mr. Bosompim could not understand why the Headmaster was allowed by the Zongo Police to go home after he had reported to them this morning.