The Minister for Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has cautioned John Mahama’s running-mate in the 2020 elections, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, to be mindful of her comments on Free SHS and its implementation.
“We don’t have to say things that we cannot substantiate…When you speak, the world listens and I plead with the hon minister [Naana Jane] that she should measure her words carefully when talking about WASSCE and WAEC, an international organization…” Dr Adutwum cautioned.
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Dr Adutwum’s comments come after Prof Opoku-Agyemang in an interview with Woezor TV questioned why Ghanaians are enthused over the performance of SHS students in the 2020 WASSCE exams on the back of the widespread reports of leakages and cheating.
“We have also heard and seen students who wrote an exam, came out and it was like, you know we had an earthquake in this country, it wasn’t like one school or two schools… this same group’s performance is supposed to be outstanding that we shouldn’t be talking, it is the group I am referring to,” she said.
She added, “And they went and wrote the exams we heard of the leakage of the exams, we heard of invigilators being compromised, we heard many things and we also saw the students come out and speak about, ‘no this is not what we were told will happen’, now these students have As and we are happy? It is up to us.”
Reacting to this on Good Evening Ghana, the Minister for Education said, the students ought to be commended for their sterling performance in the midst of the pandemic.
“Under her watch as the Minister of Education in 2015, 23.9% of the students obtained Al to C6 in Maths; under Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in the midst of COVID-19, these students courageously sit for the exam and obtain a score of 66.05% and madam, the least you can do is commend the hardworking teachers, headmasters [and mistresses] of this nation who supported these students through thick or thin in the midst of COVID-19, they did the impossible.
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“…They did so well and instead [of] commending them, you look at these young men and women and tell them that they cheated. WAEC has an algorithm to detect students who have cheated and catch them every year. Let me tell you what this hon minister [Naana Jane] has taken for granted is that when you speak in Ghana, you speak to the entire globe because of what she said, some students may not get scholarships to certain universities around the world because they are going to look at them and say you’ve cheated you don’t deserve to get the scholarship from us.”
