This long Xmas break produced unusual events which should caution journalists in their reportage. It so happens sometimes, that statements that were made at Christmas were not made; the chief said this but I don’t believe it. His Excellencies spoke, but don’t take it seriously.
The matter is worsened by parliamentary sittings where under certificates of emergency, bills may be passed while journalists stampede to take notes only to be cautioned: ‘Christmas festivities; His Excellencies, The Speaker and Honourables passed the Bill shortly after a champagne banquet. News editors, please take note.’
I have otherwise been struggling to digest a WASSCE results verdict declared by the Fourth President of the Fourth Republic, our beloved John during the Xmas festivities. (WASSCE: West African Senior School Certificate Exams)
Before then, November 2023. He threatens to cancel the Teacher Licensure Exams if he returns to power, since as many as 5000 teachers unfortunately ‘bombed’ or failed. He sheds ex-presidential tears in sympathy with grieving teachers and would cancel the exams to end teachers’ sorrows if he gets a return ticket.
Oh, what a caring Father! November moves on; the month of December follows weeks after. SHS final year students receive their WASSCE results testing their readiness for tertiary education, and beloved Dramani wails even louder. Tears, tears, tears, this time not from news of mass failures, but from news of resounding achievements! Students have passed with flying colours, but Dramani’s zero faith gives him nightmares. To him, Ghana’s eternally low-brain students must have cheated in exams.
Our school boys and girls are then stunned. Ah! Did that quotation come from John 3: 16?
Indeed time allowing, John would probably have added another verse, John 19:30. ‘And Jesus said, it is finished,’ which would have meant WASSCE is finished; and soon be cancelled to disappear with the Licensure Exams! But John did not drift that far.
Are partisan colours and the sweet smell of power blurring our vision about exams? If so, let me undertake a special exercise, and go back to basics, telling the story of WASSCE, and summarizing past and present outcomes of exams.
I have under my pillow, data from 2006 when WASSCE started up to 2023, and can undertake trend analysis up to the minute, to summarize the story of Ghana’s public policy and high school education.
In any case, whom am I to talk this big? The full story itself evokes memories of personal grief, but I will try.
I accumulated considerable data in 2016 when I was Vice Chancellor of Central University, invited by WAEC to deliver a lecture in WAEC’s Endowment Fund Lecture series which rotates from country to country, and is often delivered by ‘a distinguished speaker from the host country.’
I was to be the 21st speaker and the 5th Ghanaian after E. A. Boateng (1996), Florence Dolphyne (2001), Ivan Addae-Mensah (2006), and D. A. Akyeampong (2011).
Close watchers of the academia landscape may recall that the much-publicised lecture was hysterically aborted by the same WAEC at the 11th hour, citing ‘political controversy it might generate in an election year’. In other words, election years cannot accommodate certain topics in Ghana’s democracy.
This was after I had announced my theme to WAEC and burnt candles over several months preparing for the event. My dignity was rudely assaulted, and I was replaced with another speaker three days before 21st March 2016, the scheduled date.
The incident raised eyebrows about the resilience of the subregional body and irrevocably stained the lecture series. Apparently teleguided by unseen forces, the shocking development was clearly a brazen assault on Ghana’s academic freedom but did not make headlines.
The Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences of which I am a Fellow, somehow saved the situation. With Akilagpa Sawyer presiding, the Academy gave me an alternate platform on May 3rd, providing me comfortable space and a mammoth audience, to unload a monumental 60-pager entitled, ‘The three-year four-year pendulum: towards a stable public policy on senior high school education:’ a topic otherwise considered a taboo in a 2016 election year.
The synopsis of that ‘Gospel’ appears in my humble autobiography ‘The Pen at Risk: Spilling my Little Beans.’
That intriguing journey, plus my recent stint at the Ministry of Education as a minister of state and subsequent updates, gives me access to broad WASSCE trends from 2006 to the latest results in 2023.
In my next post, I take a closer look at the wide spectrum of WASSCE results, to examine the basis of John’s doubts. Or whether John’s worries are simply another Act in Dramani’s post-banquet Drama.
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The writer can be reached via email at [email protected]
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