The Minister of Education, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyeman has said that her ministry is determined to renew and withdraw license of some private schools in the country to ensure quality and efficiency in the education system.

The Minister, who was of the view that some of the private schools don’t have qualified teachers and conducive environment for teaching and learning, questioned how those academic institutions came into being.

She, however, accused such schools of being responsible for churning out poor students who are not able to continue to climb the academic ladder for excellence.

Prof. Jane Opoku-Agyeman made the statement at the 2015 West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) Distinction Awards ceremony in Accra, yesterday. Three of the students, Jessica Ayeley Kwei, Ruth Awuramah and Danielle Amo Mensah who recorded eight A1s in Science at the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), swept all the awards at the event, which was instituted under the WAEC Endowment Fund five years ago.

The remarkable performance has also enriched Ghana’s credential on the international front, to top the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) Competition for the fourth conservative time. Also, Rebecca Koranteng and John Kojo Owusu, former students of Wesley Girls Senior high School and Mfantsipim Senior High School respectively received awards for scoring eight A1s in May/June 2015 WASSCE business and arts subjects.

The Education Minister congratulated the Ghanaian candidates for picking all the three awards in the WAEC Competition for the international excellence award. “Clearly, the results confirm the high quality of education in this country; which indicates that the strategies we have put in place in our education system are producing the desired results.

“This should deepen the confidence we have in our educational system and desist from casting doubts about the quality of our education as some people are prone doing,” she explained. Prof Opoku Agyeman continued that she acknowledged the problems candidates continue to face with their performance in Mathematics and Integrated Science saying:

“we will however not throw up our hands in despair; neither will we give up the fight. We will continue to fight to adopt new strategies and interventions to arrest disappointing trends.

“Teaching and learning of Mathematics and Science must improve and this is a challenge we have in collaboration with the council, organized a stakeholders’ forum in Kumasi last month to address the performance of candidates in Mathematics and Integrated Science, provide teaching and learning materials in these subjects and share experience on modes of improvement.”

Very Rev. Dr. Sam Nii Nmai Ollonnu, Head of the WAEC National Office, Ghana urged students not to buy into the perception that WAEC deliberately fails students to enrich itself, adding: “we refuse this notion. WAEC wants students to pass. Your pass is our success.”

He said out of the 268,812 candidates that sat for the May/June 2015 WASSCE, 139,868 were males and 128,944 were females from 809 schools. Out of the figure 51.6% obtained grades A1 to C6, which according to him was a reduction of 2014 of 57.4%, stating that mathematics pass grades dropped from 32.6% in 2014 to 24.3% in 2015.

“Integrated science also suffered a decline in performance as only 23.3% of candidates obtained pass between A1 to C6 in 2015 as against 28.7% in 2014,” he added.