The 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) will follow the old format of students from the five countries writing the same examination, Professor Opoku-Amankwa, Director-General of the Ghana Education Service has told www.ghanaweb.com

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic which led to the closure of schools in the countries, it was initially agreed that students were going to answer country-specific questions.

Under the proposed format, countries were going to write exams independent of each other.

But with lockdown restrictions easing and final year students back to school, the five countries namely Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Gambia and Sierra Leone have decided to revert to the old system.

Professor Opoku-Amankwa disclosed in an interview that the countries have also decided to adopt Ghana’s safety protocols for their schools.

“When we started initially, we thought the WASSCE which is an international exam was going to be Ghana-specific. We negotiated with WAEC to have it for only Ghana and they agreed to do it for us. But just last week, all the five countries have agreed to use Ghana’s time-table for the exam. They’ve also agreed to use our safety protocols,” he said.

Professor Opoku-Amankwa also urged students not to take their wards from the schools, insisting their safety is guaranteed.

“We are looking at 300,000 children who are in schools now. If you report thirty or ten of them, is it an issue for panic? We are told that the COVID, if you get it, within four to eleven days, you will see the signs so if you treat those ones and do not allow people to come in as we did with the borders. Everything that we are treating is indoors and all things being equal, by the time they’ll be writing the exams, the issue would have been curtailed,” he said.

“Between us and the health people, we are hoping that there will not be a lot of cases. We expected that there will be cases but there is no cause for alarm. With the measures put in place, we believe the children are safe”.

The 2020 WASSCE is scheduled for August 3 to September 4, 2020.