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The Accra High Court has submitted a court order to the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), ordering the body to refrain from any activity related to the marking and grading of all exams organized by WAEC.
The court order, dated Friday, September 25, 2020, follows claims by Africa Education Watch that WAEC has failed to keep the identity of 1,520 of its examiners discreet for the recently completed West African upper secondary certification exams. .
According to Africa Education Watch, its officials intercepted on social media an Excel spreadsheet that contained “specific names, schools, subject areas, phone numbers and email addresses” of the examiners.
The Superior Court declares WAEC’s act “irregular, substandard, and unacceptable” and declares that WAEC “has been careless and irresponsible in its duties.”
Therefore, it has directed the review board to:
“Put aside all so-called lists, meetings or appointments intended to mark and score the results of all WAEC exams until new appointments are made to exclude all the names of the leaked documents circulating on social media.”
In addition, he prayed to the court to compel WAEC to “refrain itself, its agents and assignees from pretending to act in any way that contravenes the established general rules, regulations and principles regarding the conduct of all external examinations in Ghana” .
Furthermore, WAEC was ordered to appear before the Superior Court within eight days after the appeal was served.
If you do not show up on Thursday, October 8, 2020 at 9:00 a.m. M., The ruling issued in the absence of the examining body and without prior notice will be observed.
The request for the court order, according to Africa Education Watch, comes after WAEC ignored previous warnings from them to properly address the issue.
It mentions in a statement that “giant steps” were taken to collaborate with WAEC to investigate and find solutions to the matter by writing officially to WAEC, Parliament and the Ministry of Education on August 18, 2020.
The NGO maintains that immediately after its official statement, the minority in parliament, teachers’ unions and civil society organizations came together to condemn the leak and also called for the investigations to be expedited to protect the integrity of WAEC and all the examination process.
It says that instead of properly handling the leak, WAEC only issued a statement of apology, “admitting it was from their National Offices but downplaying its importance and urging the public to ignore the list as it was not their list of validated bookmarks.”
