Gov’t Secretly Postpones Release Of WAEC Exam Results Because Of Mass Failures

An earlier plan by the Akufo-Addo government to hold a big graduation ceremony at the Independence Square in Accra for the first batch of students under the government’s Free SHS policy to sit the West African Senior High School Certificate Examination (WASCE) has been shelved as reports coming in indicates that many of the students had failed.

Whatsup News has gathered that the Education Ministry trying to avert a backlash that may impact the government politically by deferring the release of the 2020 WASCE results in 2021.

According to reports, a secret letter that the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, Dr. Kwasi Opoku Amankwa, wrote to Education Minister, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh advised that the scheduling of 5th November 2020 as the release date for the results be abandoned so that the government can save itself the shame.

“The preliminary data from WAEC indicates some concerning performances as compared to previous years’ results. We are of the understanding that, these results should be looked at again and if possible the final release date be postponed until the general elections are over,” Mr. Opoku Amankwah reportedly wrote to the Education Minister.

Consequently, even though both Ghana and Nigeria fielded students in this year’s WASCE, Nigeria has since released its students’ results on the 2nd of November.

 The government had been hoping to make a big political statement with the 2020 WASCE results with full State Protocol plans to hold a ceremony at the Independence Square for graduates who would be members of the first batch of students to benefit from the Free SHS.

However, the wishy-washy way the Free SHS had been run so far, including the contentious shift system that it has introduced, has been blamed for lowering the standard of education.

A total of 375,737 candidates from 976 public and private second cycle schools across the country participated in this year’s WASSCE at 796 centres. They comprised of 187,574 males and 188,163 female candidates.