WAEC moves WASSCE to April to aid students’ preparations

Final year SHS students will henceforth write the West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in April.
Speaking today [Tuesday] at a seminar for journalists, Head of the West African Examination Council (WAEC), Rev. Samuel Ollennu said the move will guarantee that the nine terms allocated to teaching and learning in second cycle schools are fully exhausted by students before the examination.
“We are here to sanitize you about the forthcoming examination, which this time around is not starting February but on April 3. Formerly, we were going to start in February but the government appealed to us not to”, he said.
In November last year, the Minister of Education announced the proposal, citing that students need adequate time for preparation, and after consultation with the West African Examination Council (WAEC), the date was reviewed.
The Ministry of Education was in talks with the West African Examination Council last year November (WAEC), to ensure that from 2018, the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) would be written in May.
Successive governments have considered various ways to aid the preparations of candidates for their final exams, including toying with the SHS duration.
Former President John Agyekum Kufuor’s government changed the three year SHS duration system in 2007 to four years, due to similar concerns being raised by Opoku Prempeh.
But the National Democratic Congress (NDC) reversed it back to three years, claiming the four-year duration brought undue hardships to parents.
It appears the Akufo-Addo government is seriously considering extending the length to four years again.
The Minister of Planning, Professor Gyan Baffour in September 2017 revealed that government is monitoring the three-year SHS system to inform a possible review back to four years.
“The time lost, we have to make it up. That is the first thing that we are trying to do now, and based on that, we can now use the analysis that they do after that time, to see what the public thinks and to decide on whether we move for three years or four years,” he added.