Monrovia – The head of the West African Examination Council (WAEC) Liberia Chapter, Dale G. Gbotoe has alleged that some school administrators have “deliberate intentions” to defraud this year’s West African Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) process.
In a live interview with FrontPageAfrica Monday, Mr. Gbotoe said three school administrators from Montserrado and Grand Bassa Counties were caught carrying out examination malpractice just at the start of the test.
“One of those who were caught is a school administrator hired by WAEC to serve as supervisor for this year’s examination,” Mr. Gbotoe disclosed.
“He took the test to do multiple copies, so that it can be taken to students, when an officer who is assigned at one of the centers nabbed him with said document.”
The accused teacher, according to the WAEC boss, has been turned over to the relevant security authority for investigation.
He said these administrators and other workers are hired to work for WAEC during the exam period due to limited number of staff at the country’s office.
He is worried that if there is a proven fraud, they will have to reprint all the examination papers because students of all countries in the region are taking the same test. He said reprint will pose a lot of economic constraint of the country.
The total cost for conducting the entire examination in Liberia is US$3 Million – a cost the government has agreed to underwrite, Gbotoe said, adding that WAEC has received US$1.3 million of this amount.
At the same time, Mr. Gbotoe lamented that delay in getting the budget on time has created some challenges for preparing for the conduct of exams, constraining the country office of WAEC to request vendors to pre-finance the production of test materials.
“Recently, some of the vendors threatened to take us to court, but we had a dialogue with them, and we will be disbursing their money to them,” Gbotoe noted.
Meanwhile, the WAEC boss disclosed that the number of students participating in this year’s examination is more encouraging than previous years.
But he added that there are some students who did not complete their registration process in time, because their schools did not submit their names. These students will have to take their test in a separate hall to avoid leakage of test, he disclosed.
Describing these students as “walk-in candidates,” Mr. Gbotoe added: “These students names were not submitted by their schools; they came for the test and it was only noticed lately that their names and numbers were not on our lists.”
“They will have to pay for themselves, because the names we sent to government were the only ones paid for.”
He did not give the actual number of schools affected by this situation because, according to him, several schools are still reporting similar problems.
At the same time, Mr. Gbotoe has blamed the situation on the inability of some school administrators to do their work on their respective campus.
“When administrators sent names to the IT people who are doing businesses outside, they sometimes mixed up the names and pictures of different schools,” he said.
Nevertheless, he commended other schools for better coordinating their students but warned school administrators not to exploit the situation that has seen students taking the examination on their various campuses this year.