Koforidua Poly meets deadline-In submitting marked scripts for verification

5-11-08
Page 11


STUDENTS of the Koforidua polytechnic have become the first in the country to receive the Higher National Diploma (HND) results, within the same year of completing school.
The National Board for Professional and Technicians Examination (NABPTEX) last week released the results of students of the polytechnic who completed school in June this year.
Hitherto, it took about a year for the HND results of the polytechnics to be released due to the delay of the polytechnics to submit the marked scripts of their final year students to NABPTEX for verification.
The submission of the marked scripts for verification by an external examination body, is part of the quality assurance measures by NABPTEX.
The Executive Secretary of NABPTEX, Mr Ben Antwi-Boasiako, told the Daily Graphic that the Board was not responsible for the delay in the release of results of polytechnics, and that once the institutions submitted the scripts of their students early, their results would be released on time.
He commended the authorities of the Koforidua polytechnic for setting the pace, adding that “this is the first time a polytechnic has submitted its marked scripts for verification by an external examination body within the given time frame”.
“Koforidua polytechnic has shown that students can finish school in a year and get their results in the same year,” he explained, adding that students of the polytechnics who completed this year should have their certificates by the end of the year.
Mr Antwi-Boasiako, therefore, urged the polytechnics to emulate the example of the Koforidua polytechnic by submitting their scripts to the Board on time for verification and release.
“According to our regulations, marked scripts should be ready six weeks after the students had written their examinations. But most lecturers do no go by that deadline and sometimes take six months to submit the marked scripts of students,” he lamented.
He announced that NABPTEX, in collaboration with the Dutch Government would next week hold a four-day meeting with the polytechnics on four HND programmes - Agricultural Engineering, Automotive Engineering, Civil Engineering and Fashion that were using competency-based training (CBT) methods.
The methods, according to him, were in line with the new way of restructuring Technical Vocational Education Training (TVET) curriculum, which the government has agreed should be competency-based.
Mr Antwi-Boasiako said the CBT methods had inputs from the industry.