Deputy Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum ha said that from 2019, the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) will be scheduled for June.

While on a tour today to some Senior High Schools in Accra, He passed the statement at the Labone Senior High School.

The Deputy Minister further stated that final candidates, by this move will be provided with ample time to prepare for their final exams which is organised annually in five English speaking countries in West Africa.

He said “Next year, we are asking them that we want to do May/June and not February/March. We want students to have more time to study because over the years, the three years has turned into two years, three months”.

The other West African states that participate in the examination are the Gambia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria.

The Deputy Minister as well as the Member of Parliament for Bosomtwe in the Ashanti region lamented that he was convinced the move will help the final year candidates in the country to come out with better results.

Among the schools he visited were St Thomas Aquinas Senior High School, Nungua Senior High Schools and the Teshie Cluster of Schools and the Nungua St. Augustine Anglican Basic School and Morning Star School.

He said the Ministry’s request for the exams to be written in June this year could not be met by the WAEC, because candidates from Ghana were supposed to write simultaneously alongside the other Wesr African States who participate in the exams.

He further said the three-year instructional hours with students had gradually reduced to a little over two years, depriving the students of the needed time to prepare.

Some final year students of the Labone Senior High School who spoke to the Press were overjoyed by the move of the Ministry of Education, perceiving it to be a great opportunity for them to prepare well for the final exams.

Dr Adutwum said, the government was investing “heavily” in the sector to surmount the challenges which had existed in the schools for decades.

Ghanaguardian.com