Kwami Alorvi, a former National President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has identified two main school-based sources of leaked questions and examination malpractices being detected in the conduct of the West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) 2021.

There appears to be well organized “Examination Cabals” in the schools determined to make a profit out of the WASSCE. These Cabals operate at various levels.

The two main school-based sources of exam malpractices in WASSCE 2021 are;

1. School Management
2. Subject Teachers and Assistant Heads of School

A) School Managements
At the apex of these cabals are the School Managements. Some Heads of School, with the connivance of their PTAs, have instituted a collection of illegal fees ranging between Ghc100.00 and Ghc400.00 per candidate termed as “Teacher Motivation”. A school with an enrollment of 1,200 SHS3 candidates collecting Ghc300.00 per student for example, will bag an amount of Ghc360,000.00 for the WASSCE.

Trusted teachers are put in charge of the collection of these levies by their Heads. Parents of examination candidates are in a hurry to pay these levies since their wards are assured of excellent WASSCE results. At the end of each WASSCE, the money is disbursed among all teachers. Intelligence picked by our Team indicates that in some schools, each teacher receives between Ghc2,000.00 and Ghc5,000.00.

Reports yet to be investigated by our team also indicate that some Management staff at the Regional Directorates and Headquarters of the GES are allegedly well catered for by the Heads of School with part of this money and this provides a shield to these unscrupulous heads from being sanctioned. When our team tried to probe further into this allegation, one informant drew our attention to a peculiar happening in the GES to convince us to accept his position.

He asked if we had ever seen Regional Directors and CHASS Executives going to GES Headquarters to plead for the reinstatement of Headmasters that were removed from office for speaking about challenges of the free SHS. Our response of course, was in the negative.

He asked if Regional Directors and CHASS Executives were not benefiting from the money, how come they always travelled to the GES Headquarters to plead on behalf of Heads sanctioned for collection of these illegal “Teacher Motivation” fees. The informant concluded that it was because of the benefits that spread up the ladder that Directors and CHASS Executives are always eager to intercede on behalf of Heads caught in the collection of the “teacher motivation” fee.

Our team uncovered some reasons why the collection of the unapproved “teacher motivation” levies are becoming the new normal in Senior High Schools. Prior to the introduction of the free SHS in 2017, students were paying a PTA levy of Ghc30.00 per year (Ghc10.00 per term) for Teacher Motivation. With the inception of free SHS, the government absorbed this fee and reduced it to Ghc20.00 per year (Ghc6.67 per term) and has now cancelled it completely. Heads don’t have any money to motivate their teachers.

The academic intervention fee instituted by the MoE for extra tuition of students have been paid only two times since 2017; one out of three terms in 2017 and one term in 2020. Apart from the gaps left in 2017 and 2020, no payments were made to the schools in 2018, 2019 and 2021.

The Ghc10.00 per student examination fee that the schools used to receive from the government has also allegedly been reduced to Ghc5.00 per student. Payment of the Ghc10.00 per student development levy to schools has also been abolished by the MoE/GES.

Thus, with dwindling funds for running the schools and motivating teachers, Heads, rather than discuss development issues with their staff, go to staff meetings to read the “Book of Lamentation” to their staff. They are thus able to carry the staff along to support them in the examination fraud under the guise of teacher motivation fees.

Benefit from the teacher motivation fees from the Head is a bait that teachers are unable to resist. One teacher even jokingly said President Akufo Addo had said teachers should do other things in addition to their teaching if they wanted to be rich so their Headmasters are doing what he termed “Financial Engineering”.

The money received by teachers from their Heads is enough to compromise them as invigilators in the exam halls.

Students are aware of the payment of these levies by their parents and are determined to demand their side of the bargain from teachers. Some teachers whose conscience does not allow them to condone and connive, opt-out of invigilation in some schools.

A few others who want to live by their professionalism do invigilate but refuse to allow students to cheat. They thus come under attack from fellow teachers and students. They receive written threats from students, surreptitiously posted in their pigeon holes in staff common rooms, or dropped on their vehicles parked in the schools, or in their houses by aggrieved students. Our team is in possession of copies of such threats.

The motivation of Heads to undertake this fraud is to get good results that will boost their image and that of their schools. Another reason is the fear of removal from office should their schools fail to produce good results.

The examination fraud has now become a pandemic affecting virtually every school including the big ones in all the regions. Obtaining good grades by whatever means has become a do or die affair.

List of 14 Public Colleges of Education affiliated to the UCC

B) Subject Teachers and Assistant Heads of School
Below the School Management level is a network of subject teachers and Assistant Headmasters (Internal Examination Supervisors).

Subject teachers, with the approval of their Assistant Headmasters, collect sums of money from students offering their subjects. Fees range from Ghc50.00 to Ghc150.00 per student. One student is usually put in charge of the collection.

List of 15 Colleges of Education affiliated to the University of Education Winneba

Teachers compile the names of parents of these students and their contacts. Parents of students who have difficulty in paying the levies are called by the subject teachers and told to pay so their wards could be assisted in the exams. These collections are usually done at the blindsides of Heads of School.

The amounts of money collected by these subject Heads are disbursed among the Assistant Headmaster who is in charge of supervision of the exams, the police officer on duty, the subject teachers and invigilators of those subject papers.

With all these people compromised, the Assistant Headmaster, after issuing out the question papers to students, smuggles out one question paper from the remaining lot to the subject teachers who quickly solve them. The Science and Computer Labs are usual places where the teachers hide to secretly solve the questions under the supervision of the Assistant Headmaster.

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The questions get to the exam halls in three ways:

i) Electronically through WhatsApp
Students are allowed to go into the exam halls with mobile phones by the compromised invigilators. Answers are then transmitted to them, or to their leaders through WhatsApp which are passed on to all students.

ii) Manual Transmission
The answers are written on pieces of paper and handed over to the Assistant Headmaster (Supervisor) who then goes around from room to room distributing them to students through their invigilators. In some instances, the compromised police officer on duty is the conduit. He goes to the exam halls to distribute the answers directly to students while invigilators turn their eyes away and pretend to see nothing going on.

Objective question answers are faster distributed than essay answers. In the case of essay type questions, two to three varieties are worked out with slight modifications in wording and layouts. The answers are then photocopied and sent to students in the exam rooms. In some instances, subject teachers enter the rooms to dictate the answers to students with some even asking the teacher to spell out the dictated answers to them.

iii) Smuggling
In schools where Invigilators refuse to be compromised by the Heads or their Assistants, answers are left in washrooms or urinals for students to go for. These answers are hidden by students in their panties, brassieres and shoes/socks and smuggled into the exam halls.

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