Candidates from 33 selected senior high schools (SHSs) in the country will take an exam based on the new second cycle school curriculum during this year’s May-June West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for School Candidates, as confirmed by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC). The examination will focus on what is referred to as the “21st Century Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Questions,” which are designed to be more practical than traditional questions. John Kapi, the Head of Public Affairs at WAEC, shared this information with the Daily Graphic, stating that this initiative will eventually be implemented in all SHSs across the country.
Pilot
He mentioned that 33 schools were specifically chosen to pilot the program, after which the remaining 987 Senior High Schools (SHSs) would gradually be included. He expressed hope that by 2027, all 1,020 SHSs in the country would have transitioned to the new program. “These students are not uniquely different from others; they are simply following the new curriculum, which is career-oriented. Everything you are studying now is designed to lead you towards a specific career path.
For instance, there are students focusing on medical sciences, and at each stage, they will know exactly what they are doing. We also have students pursuing engineering,” he explained. Mr. Kapi clarified that the candidates are not new; the only difference is that they will be taking a different set of questions according to the new curriculum, under separate supervision.
New subjects
“So, you could have people doing engineering science. Now we have introduced some new subjects, so you can have Spanish,” he said. Meanwhile, Daily Graphic’s checks revealed that the 33 institutions included the SHSs offering the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programme. They include the Bosomtwe Girls STEM SHS and Abomosu STEM SHS. A total of 473,658 final-year senior high school (SHS) students from Ghana will join their counterparts from the four other West African member countries to sit for the 2026 May-June WASSCE-SC.
This follows the country’s return to the international examination this year after five years of writing the Ghana Only Version that was occasioned by the COVID-19 outbreak. This year’s candidature comprised 248,461 males and 225,197 females from 1,020 participating public and private second-cycle schools.
That represents 2.58 per cent increase over last year’s figure of 461,736. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced member countries of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to shift the WASSCE-SC from May-June to July 20 to September 5, 2020, while in 2021, the examination was administered from August 16 to October 8.
After 2021, all the other member countries of WAEC, including Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia, made efforts to streamline their academic calendars to return to the May-June calendar.
However, following five years of writing the Ghana Only Version of the WASSCE-SC, Ghanaian candidates will join their counterparts in the other WAEC member countries for this year’s examination, which begins with practicals or project work this month.
Source: Emmanuel Bonney
