GNAT calls for arrest of students who assault teachers during WASSCE
The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has called for the arrest of students who engage in acts of violence against its members during the ongoing West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (WASSCE).
“The issue of teachers and heads of schools being threatened, I think that is a non-starter. It is criminal and I will ask that the GES and other security agencies will have to come in and arrest people they have to arrest.
“We will not sit down for our members to be threatened. It is very serious,” President of GNAT, Philipa Larson said in an interview on Joy News.
The exam which is in its early stages has already witnessed student-agitations over what the candidates have attributed to strict supervision.
Madam Larson condemned the reason behind the agitation saying “the fact education was free does not mean the exams will also be free”.
“It’s so disappointing to hear students say that they have been deceived. I don’t understand the deception in this issue. Students are taught in school by their teachers. They go through a period of two or three years before they finally write the examination and exit.
Students in some schools across the country vandalised school properties to protest the invigilation in the ongoing WASSCE.
The schools include Ndewura Jakpa Senior High Technical School in the Savannah Region, Tweneboah Kodua Senior High School in the Ashanti Region. and Juaben Senior High School in the Ashanti Region.
The latest school to join the list of rampaging students was candidates of the Bright Senior High School, in at Kukurantumi in the Eastern Region.
The final year students attacked officials of the West African Examination Council (WAEC) who were supervising the ongoing WASSCE examination in their school.
A journalist, with the Daily Graphic in the Region, who had gone to the school to report was also assaulted by the students, leaving him with severe injuries.
The students wielding Knives, cutlasses, sticks, and stones chased the Journalist.
They reportedly accosted and seized his mobile phone in the school. Sensing danger, the Journalist took to his heels for safety but was pursued for about 15 minutes by the mob of students from the school towards the Kukurantumi township.
Some of the students reportedly jumped on a motorbike to catch up with the Journalist on the way and hit him several times with sticks, seized his bag, and attempted to lynch him.
The Daily Graphic reporter was rescued by a Commercial driver who quickly whisked him away from the scene.
Connived to cheat
An official from the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC), David Nii Gyan Mensah, has revealed how teachers and students of Bright Senior High School at Kukurantum in the Eastern Region connived to cheat in the 2020 West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination.
Officials from the exams coordinating council and students of the school on Thursday clashed over exams malpractice.
“Authorities of the school were using some of the form two students to pass on photocopied answers to the students,” Gyan Mensah told JoyNews in an interview monitored by theghanareport.com
“I saw one of the candidates holding a photocopied material, immediately he saw me he placed it under the desk so I drew the attention of another invigilator and a teacher of the school”
Initially, he said there was no paper under the desk, so I tried pulling it out and he took the paper and started chewing it”
Gyan Mensah alleged that the headmaster, Bright Amponsah, after noticing that all avenues to cheat were blocked ordered the students to stop and attack the external invigilators.
YOU CAN ALSO READ:
- Bright SHS Students Leave Invigilator, Graphic Reporter Bloodied In Lethal Attack
- Invigilator Reveals How Headmaster, Teachers Connived With Students To Cheat In Exams