The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has described the conduct of the 2025 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) as generally successful but raised serious concerns about misconduct by some invigilators.
WAEC had earlier cautioned against the growing misuse of social media to perpetrate examination malpractice, noting that the trend is becoming increasingly difficult to curb.
Speaking on Morning Starr with Joshua Kodjo Mensah on Friday, June 20, WAEC’s Head of Public Affairs, John Kapi, detailed some of the key challenges faced during the exams.
He revealed that some invigilators used mobile phones to capture snapshots of question papers, which were then shared via WhatsApp and other social media platforms—a clear violation of examination protocols.
“The other side that I want to talk about is the attitude of some of the people that were provided for us to do the job in terms of supervision, in terms of invigilation. I think a number of them did not stick to the rules of the game. That is why you probably heard us talk about invigilators who use their phones to take snapshots posted either to their friends or to some whatsapp groups that they belong to and some of them were even on some other social media platforms. And so these were things that were things that were not right.”
Mr. Kapi explained that WAEC does not publicly name candidates caught in such acts but follows internal procedures for handling examination malpractice.
“So on the part of the candidates we observed that a lot of them had received assistance from the invigilators. At a particular center in a room of about 32, 15 of them had photocopied answers in their answer booklets.”
“So these are issues regarding the candidates and on there for them we would usually not announce openly that candidates so-and-so has done this or that. All we do is for our monitors who are in the field they would provide them with some form. We have a statement form that the candidates are supposed to fill and they write their statements admitting their guilt if you want and then we apply the relevant rules when the scripts or the reports come to us and when marking is done,” he added.
WAEC has reiterated its commitment to upholding the integrity of examinations and warned that all breaches, whether by candidates or officials, will be dealt with in accordance with established rules.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/Hamdia Mohammed
