Violent Student Unrest “disheartening, show of disrespect for authority”: Bishops in Ghana

In the viral video, the students who admit to having received question papers before the WASSCE  examination began can be viewed accusing their country’s President Nana Akufo-Addo for “misleading” them and providing them with past questions that have not helped them during the exam.

In a separate incident, students of the Bright Senior High School in the Eastern Region attacked officials of the West African Examination Council (WAEC) who were supervising the ongoing WASSCE examination in their school. 

“These unfortunate incidents are very disheartening, to say the least,” Bishops in Ghana say in their collective statement signed by the President of GCBC, Archbishop Philip Naameh.

The Church leaders “call on all final year students writing the ongoing WASSCE to remain calm and to concentrate on their studies instead of looking for leaked examination questions to enable them to pass their exams.”

“There is no shortcut to success but only through hard work and discipline,” the Church leaders and urge all students to “desist from all forms of lawlessness and disregard for authority.”

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The members of GCBC further call on “all the major stakeholders in Education and the law enforcement agencies to bring the perpetrators of these acts to book in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Ghana Education Service as well as the laws of the land to serve as a deterrent to others.” 

The members of GCBC have also called on all Ghanaians, especially adults, to “show good examples to the youth instead of encouraging them to do things that endanger their lives and those of others.”

“The canker of violence that is gradually creeping into our society should be of great worry to all people of peace and goodwill,” the Bishops say and add, “The earlier we nip this in the bud, the better it will be for us.”

The leadership of the Ghana Education Service (GES) has, in a statement issued August 7, announced the dismissal of 14 students “for indiscipline in the ongoing” examination, a decision meant “to serve as deterrence and to ensure that life and property are protected in the schools.”

“All students who are in schools where destruction of school property occurred are to be surcharged for the full cost of the damage. Results of these students will be withheld till they have fully paid up the full cost of the items destroyed,” GES leadership states in the August 7 media release that bears the names the 14 dismissed students.

Administered by the West African Examination Council for candidates residing in Anglophone West African countries, WASSCE is a standardized exam that earns candidates who pass it the “West African Senior School Certificate,” which confirms their successful completion of secondary education and eligible for admission in institutions of higher learning.

Magdalene Kahiu is a Kenyan journalist with passion in Church communication. She holds a Degree in Social Communications from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). Currently, she works as a journalist for ACI Africa.