Provide proof of discrimination against private schools – WAEC replies GNACOPS
An accusation that the West Africa Examination Council tends to mark down Basic Education Certificate Examination candidates from private schools have got the council incensed.
This issue is stemming from concerns raised by the Ghana National Council of Private Schools (GNACOPS) after the outcome of the 2021 BECE and issues surrounding the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS).
GNACOPS asserted that private school candidates are intentionally marked down to give their counterparts in private schools an edge over them during placement into Senior High Schools.
Responding to the issue, the Public Relations Officer of WAEC, Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, reiterated that these are grave accusations that must be backed with evidence.
“These are wild allegations from GNACOPS. I think that they should go back and do their homework well and try and rectify the problem rather than relying on the false accusations that private schools are marked down. He who alleges must prove. These are wild allegations. I think they should prove because you can’t make these wild allegations and feed the minds of the public with it.”
While calling on the public to disregard these assertions, she explained that the marking is done in such a manner that officers are unable to differentiate between private and public schools.
“I am a bit surprised at the allegations. We don’t have the name of schools on the scripts to know whether it is from private or public schools. Even with the envelope for the scripts, we do not make provisions for the name of schools. We have over 10,000 examiners so how do we get all these examiners and tell them that, these are scripts from the private schools so they should mark it differently from the public schools”, she quizzed.
Meanwhile, Mr Enoch Gyetuah, President of GNACOP during an interview on Accra-based Citi FM complained that the discrimination has resulted in the challenges of many parents whose wards registered for the BECE with private schools are facing.
“Most of the private school students have been marked down, and we are calling for re-marking and even calling for an independent body to go into that. [There’s even discrimination in the aspect of placement]. The government has reserved 30% allocation to people in the public schools which means that if we write the same exam, and I am coming from a public school, I will be placed before someone from a private school irrespective of the grades we have,” he said.
He also revealed a trend where now parents of private schools enrol their wards in public schools for their final examinations to avoid discrimination.
“Some public school heads even canvass [for private school kids]. They move from school to school for the students we have given a good [academic] foundation and register them in their schools. If you look at the trend, you will realize that we have an enrolment of about 40% at Class 6, but as they transit to JHS, the number reduces drastically because parents have realized that government has this allocation of 30% to public schools.”
He seized the opportunity to call for transparency in the school placement, which he said has been skewed to benefit people from public schools.
He also bemoaned the fact that the GES’ school placement resolution centre was only taking action for category C and D schools, hence complaints associated with category A & B schools are not being resolved.
