By Ralph Simeon Sesay
The Public Relations Officer and Deputy Director at the Ministry of Education, Mr. Brima Michael Turay, has said in Freetown that 150,000 candidates will sit to the 2019 West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE). According to him, this has provided an extra burden for Government and other competing developmental priorities.
He noted that the current standoff, in relation to payment of fees for external examinations, has always been there since time in memorial. However he said Government has always ensured they meet certain demands of the West African Examinations Council, which often allow the examinations to go as expected.
The PRO noted that it is a standing agreement between the Government of Sierra Leone and WAEC, for the latter to pre-finance certain aspects of the public examinations. For him he sees no reason why this time the issue is being politicized in the social media as something very new.
“As a Ministry, we have always been indebted to WAEC,” Mr. Turay noted.
He said those monies had included contributions to WAEC by members countries and also fees for external examinations. He concluded that Government quite recently funded the organization of the 67 Assembly of WAEC members held in Freetown. According to him, this was an extra commitment not originally envisaged by Government.
Mr. Brima Turay was reacting to a recent notification from WAEC in which they urged Government, through the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, to immediately release funds towards the conduct of this year’s WASSCE and NPSE examinations. The WASSCE exams are due to start on 16th April, 2019, which is exactly two weeks from now.
The Head of National Office, WAEC, had written a letter notifying government about their constraints to meet pre examination arrangements like procuring examination materials and airfreight examinations materials to Freetown. The external examinations, according to the HNO, have fixed calendars, which cannot be altered or changed because Sierra Leone has failed to meet its commitments.
The Ministry and CSOs monitoring the Free and Quality Education, on their part, have blamed the problem on late submissions by school heads who always held on to submissions and end up bloating the numbers of candidates and create extra spending for Government. WAEC, according to sources, is managing an unprecedented extra 30,000 candidates added to the 120,000 candidates originally planned. The situation is the same for the past NPSE examinations where WAEC had to deal with an extra number not originally planned for.
Many believe Government and WAEC, cognizant of the Free and Quality Education, should expect such an upsurge and be always ready to deal with unprecedented numbers during external examinations.
The Ministry of Finance should disburse the monies to WAEC in the next few days or Sierra Leone stands the risk of losing out from the 2019 WASSCE Examination. WAEC is also expected to conduct this year’s National Primary School Examination in May, 2019 and it is reported that the numbers have also increased hugely.