WASSCE

     The Ashanti Regional Director of Education, Nana Sarfo Kantanka has asked heads of second cycle institutions in the region to be sympathetic to the plight and difficulties of students in their schools. According to him, some of the absenteeism of the final year students in some schools who are writing the WASSCE could have been avoided if the headmasters had been very close to the students and identified their challenges. Speaking in an interview after visiting some of the examination centres in Kumasi and other parts of the region, Nana Sarfo Kantanka said some of the students are not writing the examination because they owe school fees. He said it may be true that parents might have given the fees to their wards but the students concerned refused to settle the indebtedness. At Adu Gyamfi Senior High School at Jamasi in the Sekyere South District, a candidate who happened to be a day student failed to turn up for the first compulsory paper, Integrated Science yesterday because the student owed the school 400 Ghana Cedis. At the Okomfo Anokye Senior High School at Wiamoase, also in the Sekyere South District, nine students were absent for the first paper for various reasons. Okomfo Anokye SHS was punished last year for examination malpractices. The centre was temporarily cancelled and students ordered to write the remaining papers at the West African Examinations Council office in Kumasi, while the headmaster and tutors caught for their involvement in the malpractices were all either transferred or demoted. However, WAEC on humanitarian gesture, restored the Okomfo Anokye SHS Centre this year, but all the supervisors and invigilators were recruited from other schools to monitor the examination. Other schools visited were Kumasi Girls and Asanteman Senior High Schools. Nana Sarfo Kantanka, who was accompanied by the Chief Director at the Regional Coordinating Council, Isaac Asubonteng, said he was satisfied with the conduct of the examination in the region on the first day.