The fate of 32 students of two senior high schools — one in the Central Region and the other in the Northern Region — is in the balance, as the headmasters of those schools failed to register them for this year’s West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
While the Headmaster of New Testament Christian Academy, Gilbert Nubieku, has been arrested for failing to register 27 students of the school for the WASSCE, no official of the Gushegu Senior High School (SHS), where at least five students were not registered, has been arrested.
Nubieku is alleged to have collected money from the students for the registration but failed to do so.
The Kasoa District Crime Officer, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Moses Naa-Kolgo Agbegne, told the Daily Graphic that Nubieku admitted, during interrogation, that he had collected GH¢8,100 from the students.
Mr Agbegne said Nubieku claimed that he had given the money to the headmaster of another school at Ayigbe Town on the Mallam-Kasoa Road to register the students for the examination but the said headmaster failed to do so.
Nubieku is said to have told the police that the headmaster (name withheld) of the other school later called and refunded GH¢6,500, with the explanation that he could not register the students.
According to the police, Nubieku had indicated his readiness to refund the money to the students.
That notwithstanding, the police said they would investigate the matter to determine whether or not Nubieku had given the money to another headmaster to register the students.
Mr Agbegne said the headmaster who took the money from Nubieku would also be invited for questioning, adding that the police were looking at the students’ interest.
The practical aspect of the May/June 2013 WASSCE is ongoing, with the written part set to begin on April 9, 2013.
Over 400,000 candidates, comprising two groups of final-year senior high school students, are writing this year’s WASSCE.
Meanwhile, at least five final-year students of the Gushegu SHS in the Northern Region may not be able to write the examination.
This follows the inability of the school authorities and the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to register them.
While the school authorities insist that they had registered all final-year students and sent the information to WAEC for processing, officials of WAEC say they processed only the names of students submitted to them by the school and that any problem concerning non registration of students is not their fault.
The number of students who could not be registered remains unclear, as the school authorities and some of the affected students continue to give different figures.
While the school authorities indicated that five students could not be registered, some of the affected students said 11 of their mates had not been registered.
Those affected, however, indicated that the figure could be higher, as they did not know all the affected students.
Following information it received that some students of the Gushegu SHS had not been registered for this year’s WASSCE, the Daily Graphic contacted sources at the school to find out the veracity or otherwise of the information.
It was revealed that some students had, indeed, not been registered for the examination, although they had provided all the necessary documents and fees for the process.
It was also revealed that the problem had been reported to WAEC to be rectified.
The affected students said they realised that they had not been registered for the examination when the list of registered students and their index numbers were posted on the notice board.
But when the Northern Regional Office of WAEC was contacted, officials there said they had not received any complaint from any school in the region and stated that all enquiries about the issue should be directed at the headquarters of the council in Accra, as the regional officers were not allowed to speak to the media.
The Public Relations Officer of WAEC, Madam Teye Cudjoe, said no issue of that nature had not been brought to the attention of the council.
The Headmaster of the Gushegu SHS, Mr Inusah Nuhu, when contacted for further clarification on the matter, refused to comment, saying documents concerning the registration of the students were in the school and anybody who wanted to clarify anything about the matter could go to the school to do so.
But an Assistant Headmaster in charge of Academics, who gave his name as Philip, said 1,407 students had been registered through the “system” of WAEC.
“But when the list of registered students came back with the index numbers, we realised that the number that had been registered was 1,402 and we have sent back the problem to WAEC to rectify,” he said.
He said some of the students who claimed they had not been registered might not have undergone the entire registration process, hence the anomaly.
Meanwhile, the affected students have denied boycotting part of the registration process, saying they did everything that the authorities asked them to do during the process.
They made a passionate appeal to the government and the Ghana Education Service (GES) to intervene in the matter to enable them to write the examination.
