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Executive Director of Child’s Rights International, Mr Bright Appiah, has called for stringent measures to forestall a future recurrence of examination leaks and malpractices that tend to put the future of children in jeopardy.

He said examination leaks that led to the cancellation of examination results had been a consistent practice and that indicated that security provided during the entire examination process was weak, while services provided were also not up to standard, hence the need to beef up security at the various stages of the examination process.

Speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic following the cancellation of five subject papers in the ongoing Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) after a reported leak of the said papers, he said, statistics indicated that, since 2010, there was a leakage every year, leading to the cancellation of some results that affected the academic progress of the candidates.

Statistics

He mentioned that in 2010, 1,075 subject results of the BECE were cancelled, with 76 entire results cancelled, while in 2011, 186 subject results were cancelled, with 13 entire results cancelled.

He also said in 2012, 1,127 subject results were cancelled and in 2013, 7,270 results were withheld due to examination malpractices and out of that, 63 entire results were cancelled and 748 subject results cancelled.

He also noted that last year, 11,759 results were withheld, out of which 64 were entirely cancelled and 398 candidates had their subject results cancelled.

Consistent practice

Mr Appiah pointed out that this had been a consistent practice, hence the need to strengthen security at the various points of the examination process in order to deal with the canker.

He said the implication of the persistence of the problem was that the system was not recognising the best interest of children, and this led to a social disorder for children.

He said, for instance, parents of candidates who had to travel long distances to examination centres to write their papers had to look for accommodation for them, and rescheduling the cancelled papers meant that such parents would incur additional cost to make alternative arrangements for their children to enable them to write the papers that had been rescheduled, and that would seriously affect those who were not well-to-do.

BNI investigations

On Wednesday, the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) took over investigations into the leak of five subject papers in the ongoing Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), following the announcement by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) of the cancellation of five subject papers in the ongoing BECE.

They are papers two of English Language and Religious and Moral Education; Integrated Science; Mathematics and Social Studies.

This followed the discovery by the WAEC that those papers had leaked and, thereby, the integrity of the papers had been compromised.