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Financial difficulties have been cited by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) as the main reason for the delay of the results of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
John Kapi, WAEC’s Head of Public Affairs, stated in an interview on the Citi Breakfast Show on Thursday, December 19, that the results are still not available because of unpaid debts owed to technicians who are in charge of maintaining vital equipment required for the examination procedure.
The results are not yet ready. We already released a statement outlining some of the difficulties we are now encountering. Sadly, these issues still exist because we haven’t been able to raise the money needed to solve them,” Mr. Kapi said in the interview.
According to Mr. Kapi, the main problem is the malfunctioning of specialized scanners that are necessary for marking objective questions in the WASSCE.
Urgent repairs are needed for these scanners, which are essential to the grading process. The experts who were supposed to fix the equipment, however, have ceased their work because WAEC still owes them GH₵25 million.
“We needed to repair our scanners because we owe the technicians GH¢25 million and they have withdrawn their services until we make some financial commitments. Private schools pay their fees but the government pays for candidates in public schools, and so until the monies are paid, we are unable to release the results,” Mr. Kapi elaborated.
The Parliament’s minority expressed interest in the issue and called for the Finance and Education Ministers to be called before the House to discuss the government’s debt to WAEC.
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com
