Final-year students of Tweneboa Kodua Senior High School at Kumawu in the Sekyere Kumawu District of the Ashanti region, on Monday, 3 August 2020 vandalised school property and demonstrated against the headmaster for being strict on them during the sitting of their first paper in the just-started West Africa Secondary School Certificate Exams (WASSCE).

The students further threatened to boycott the second paper.

The WASSCE candidates accused the headmaster of enforcing strictness in the examination hall.

Confirming the incident, the District Chief Executive (DCE) of Sekyere Kumawu, Mr Addai Agyekum, told Kumasi FM’s Elisha Adarkwah that: “I learned there were misunderstandings between the students and the teachers, but I was able to move in quickly and resolved the matter”.

“They were accusing the headmaster of being too strict.”

Mr Addai Agyekum indicated that the students decided to boycott the second paper, as they thought the atmosphere was quite intimidating to them.

The DCE, however, noted that he spoke to the invigilators to do their work in a very friendly atmosphere “without sacrificing legitimate discipline.”

Meanwhile, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has said in a statement signed by its Head of Public Affairs, Mrs Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, that some alleged leaked papers making the round on social media are all fake.

“The attention of WAEC has been drawn to the circulation of several fake versions of the Integrated Science 1 & 2 papers to be administered on 3 August 2020 on social media platforms”, the statement said.

The Council said it “wishes to allay the fears of all stakeholders, especially the candidates about the alleged leakage of the papers”.

It noted that a “scrutiny of the images being shared on social media indicates, once again, the activities of certain individuals, mainly operators of rogue websites and WhatsApp groups aimed at leading candidates astray and discrediting the Council”.

WAEC said it “is very vigilant and has alerted the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service and the National Security Secretariat “about the threats posed by these groups”.

“The Council assures all its stakeholders that it has put in place all the necessary measures to ensure the smooth conduct of the WASSCE for school candidates”, the statement added.

This year’s West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) will start today, Monday, 3 August 2020, with a total of 375,737 candidates in over 796 examination centres across the country.

Some 187,574 of the candidates are males and 188,163 are females.

The Ashanti region had the highest number of candidates, 87,295, followed by Eastern region with 56,467 candidates.

The Bono, Bono East and Bono West regions presented 45,295 candidates made up of 22,043 males and 23,252 females in that order.

The Central region presented 42,946 candidates, comprising 21,009 males and 21,937 females.

According to the statistics, Greater Accra had 37,974 candidates with 19,484 being females; Oti and Volta regions 34,466 candidates with 17,622 being males.

In the Northern, Savana and North East Regions, 24,830 candidates are expected to sit the examination with 14,105 being males.

The Western and Western North regions has 24,332 candidates with 12,601 females.

Upper East and West regions has 13,334 and 8,798 candidates, respectively.

The candidates are from 641 public and 335 private schools.

The private schools presented a total of 61,899 candidates with public schools presenting 313,838 students.

Depending on their courses, the candidates are expected to write four core subjects and three other electives.

The examination is expected to end on 5 September 2020.