By Tejan Ayoub Joaque in Port Loko
Some aggrieved parents in the northern Sierra Leonean district of Port Loko have criticised the West African Exams Council (WAEC) for withholding the school-leaving WASSCE results of hundreds of their children. WAEC says the students had spied in the exams.
Alimatu Turay, an affected parent and a teacher at the Sierra Leone Church Primary School in Port Loko told Politico that she was disappointed with WAEC for the “treatment of our kids in such an unfair way”. She lamented that she paid over Le 300, 000 for her daughter to write the WASSCE exams and that if the results were not released it would affect the future of her daughter and other affected students as they would have to wait for two more years to be able to to write another exams under the current education system.
She called on the Government and WASSCE to see reasons and release the results to “reduce the dropout rate”.
One of the affected students of the Port Loko Catholic Secondary School, Adama Kamara said withholding their results had frustrated her and other affected students. She said she had planned to go to university next
academic year but could not do so now and might never it was her second attempt at the exams and could not afford the fees in two years.
Responding, the head of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Sheriff Mohamed Sapateh confirmed that nearly 1,200 results in 93 schools nationwide were seized because of exams malpractice. He said the alleged cases of malpractice had been reported to the Sierra Leone Examinations Committee whom he said had advised that the release some results and cancel those subjects in which there was proven evidence of
malpractice.
On the general performance of schools in the district in the WASSCE Exams, Sapateh said he was disappointed because with over 3,000 students who took the exams only 255 got four credits and better. He urged parents to be calm as his institution would find a solution to the issue of the seized results. He further called on education stakeholders in the district to put more efforts in improving the status of education in
the district.
