WASSCE Nov/Dec candidates doubt grades

Page 11
March 7, 2008


SOME candidates who wrote the November/December West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) last year were given grades in subjects they did not register for. Consequently, they have expressed doubts in the entire grades given to them.
The results slips of the candidates made available to the Daily Graphic had grades of subjects they did not register for.
For instance, one of them who wrote the examination in Accra had his examination centre as Wa. Aside that, he was given grades in Typewriting, Fante and French but he did not register for those subjects.
He said when he took the matter to the West African Examinations Council WAEC), one of the officers cancelled the Typewriting, Fante and French subjects and substituted them with Social Studies, Integrated Science and Physics which were the subjects he registered for.
According to him, he was asked to re-check the Internet for the corrected results. “I went back to check if what was written by the official (Social Studies, Integrated Science and Physics) were effected on the internet, a situation which raised doubts over the results.?????
A parent, whose daughter was affected, said from the mistakes made by WAEC, she did not believe that the grades given to her child were the true reflection of her performance.
She, therefore, called for a re-marking of the papers of those who were affected, adding that WAEC should also apologise for the embarrassment it had caused.
When contacted, the acting Public Relations Officer of WAEC, Mr Frederick Selby, said wrong codes were inadvertently used for the placing of the results on the Internet on Sunday, the day the results were released.
“Immediately our attention was drawn to it, early Monday morning we blocked the net and the corrections were made,” he explained, adding that those who went to the net before “our attention was drawn to the problem had the wrong subjects”.
He noted that after the corrections were made, the net was opened for candidates to access their results.
Mr Selby said the results were credible and nobody had any cause to doubt them, saying that they were the true reflection of the performance of candidates.
“The results are very credible,” he assured candidates.