The Minister for Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, said the procurement of past West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) questions for final year Senior High Students was a good investment.
According to the Minister, it is an investment into the education of the students saying the move has had a tremendous improvement on the performance as compared to previous years.
He said, “The procurement of these questions was funded through the Free Senior High School Account and the results of the 2020 WASSCE was tremendous compared to previous years’ WASSCE performance.”
To help the final year students prepare for the 2021 WASSCE, the Ministry of Education procured 446,954 past questions from Messrs Kingdom Books and Stationery at unit price of GHS 78.00 to be distributed to final year students across the country.
Similar gesture was repeated when the country was plagued with the Covid-19 pandemic when government procured 568,755 past questions for students to try their hands on before the actual exams.
The Education Minister provided these information on the Floor in answers to Parliamentary questions filed by the Member of Parliament for the Member of Parliament for the Builsa South Constituency, Dr. Clement Apaak who wanted to know how much it cost the state to procure the past questions and whether the state will again procure for the 2021 final year students.
Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum observed that, the Ministry’s provision of the past questions free of charge to students was a good move for students in the rural parts of the country so that they can also catch up with their counterparts in the cities.
Meanwhile, Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) said although it has supported the decision to provide all resources required to adequately prepare students for examinations, it has raised issues with the processes of procurement.
Statement said “It is our considered opinion that, the procurement of past questions should happen once in every three years, just as textbooks. Students should deposit the over 400 paged past question books with their respective schools after examinations, just as is done for all textbooks, to enable the subsequent batches to use for two more years. With wifi available in Senior High Schools, GES must support school heads to take the responsibility of sharing
/hard copy updates of subsequent years’ questions with teachers to facilitate their engagement with students”.
