WAEC considering suing Africa Education Watch over flawed 2020 WASSCE report

The West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) says it is contemplating taking action against the Africa Education Watch including suing them over their recent reports on 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

In a press briefing Tuesday, the Council debunked the Education Watch’s claims that examination papers were leaked to the public.

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The Council stated that it is unfortunate that although WAEC is the report’s subject, the education think tank did not engage the counsel to be better informed about what its processes and procedures are before making their conclusion and recommendation.

Head of Legal Affairs at WAEC, Rev. Victor Brew, said that “all options are on the table as far as how we are going to respond to Africa Education Watch going forward is concerned.”

“All options are on the table, so all things are possible, including a legal suit. These are things management has to reflect on and strategise. So, don’t be surprised if such a thing comes up.”

This comes after the Africa Education Watch stated that investigations they conducted revealed two categories of irregularities that occurred during the 2020 WASSCE; leakage in examiners’ contact details and widespread leakage in examination questions.

The report stated that the think tank intercepted an excel spreadsheet on social media, which contained a total of 1,520 names of WAEC examiners for the WASSCE 2020.

“That leaked list had the specific names, schools, subject areas, telephone numbers and email addresses of certified WAEC examiners. Our checks, unfortunately, confirmed the data; the purported information in circulation on social media, sadly, was an authentic document from WAEC.”

On leaked papers, Africa Education Watch stated that they intercepted some questions in almost every paper except Integrated Science and Social Studies, where the leaked papers proved to be fake.

In an interview with JoyNews‘ Evans Mensah on June 16, the Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, these question papers were sent from West African Examinations Council’s (WAEC) IT department to other online platforms, which were subsequently forwarded to his outfit by a member on the platform.

He stated that a day after his outfit hinted that the WAEC papers were leaked directly from their headquarters, WAEC indicated that it had commenced investigations into the matter.

But, WAEC has failed to brief Africa Education Watch on the outcome of the investigations, he added.

However, WAEC has denied the Africa Education Watch reports insisting no questions were leaked from WAEC to students.

The head of Public Affairs at WAEC, Agnes Teye Cudjoe, admitted that the examiners’ list was leaked but said it was not the final list of examiners. She added it also did not include vital information like who was assigned to mark which paper.

“Monitoring of the marking process for the WASSCE 2020 did not indicate any regularities as a result of the unfortunate incidents of the examiners’ list going out, and as such, we find it mind-boggling that Eduwatch should continue to cast doubt on the credibility of the examination.”

“Indeed, an analysis of the performance statistics for the WASSCE for the past three years, that is, 2018-2020, does not show abnormal improvement in performance. As a result of investigations conducted, one person has so far been arrested. We have also identified a technological failure which has been addressed to ensure that the incident does not recur.”