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Ghana will revert to writing WASSCE in May/June – GES Director-General
Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), has announced that Ghana will revert to writing the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in May/June of 2024.
He said Ghana is considering scheduling the timetable for the examination of 2024 based on contact hours in the classroom adding that this year’s WASSCE will be written by Ghana alone.
Four-member countries of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) — Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia — have returned to the May/June calendar and administered the WASSCE for their school candidates from May 9 to June 24, 2022.
He said “We are hoping that by 2024, we would have come up to the same level with the other member countries.
“That is why we said this year the calendar that we put out was a transitional calendar. We are transiting to go back to our old calendar when we start school from September/October and end in June/July the following year.”
According to Prof. Opoku-Amankwa, the 2022 WASSCE candidates would write the examination from August 1 to September 27, 2022, while “for 2023, we hope to write the examination a bit earlier than this year, most likely July/August.” Prof Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa
Amankwah explained that Ghana made a case that returning to the May/June calendar immediately would amount to disadvantaging the candidates “because they would not have met the 1,134 contact hours.”
“So we made a case to WAEC, the issue was considered at the international level and they agreed that we write our examination outside of the others,” he stated.
“But just as the May/June and the Nov/Dec examinations are both standardised and the award systems and the processes that they go through are the same, so is our August/September WASSCE an international WASSCE examination, the only difference being that the period when it is written is different from that of the other countries.
“We believe that our insistence on contact hours is a major contributor to the performance of our students in the WASSCE so far because we make sure that they get the fullest. In the past, they were doing about 1,080 contact hours in a year, but now they do 1,134 in a year and that, we believe, has contributed to their performance,” Prof. Amankwa noted.
“What we realised in the past with those rogue websites was that even though we tried as much as possible to start the papers at the same time, because of time differences, some countries might start slightly earlier than others and so some of those rogue website operators took advantage of that,” he explained.
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GEXIM deepens relations with US EXIM Bank
A management team of the Ghana Export – Import Bank (GEXIM) led by the Acting Chief Executive, Sylvester Mensah met with the leadership of the Export–Import Bank of the United States (US EXIM) on Wednesday April 23, 2025 in Washington DC, United States of America.
The Acting President and Chairman of US EXIM, Mr. James C. Cruse and Vice President, International Relations, Ms. Isabel Galdiz received the GEXIM delegation, which included Deputy CEO for Banking, Mr. Moses Klu Mensah and Head of International Cooperation, Mr. Jonathan Christopher Koney at the headquarters of US EXIM.
The meeting offered the GEXIM team the opportunity to share the strategic direction of the Bank in line with the resetting agenda of the President of the Republic, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama for the repositioning of the Ghanaian economy into an export-led one by providing the requisite investment to Ghanaian businesses.
Mr. James C. Cruse expressed US EXIM’s eagerness to deepen its existing relations with GEXIM and proposed the signing of a new Cooperative Framework Agreement following the expiration of a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2019 to utilize US EXIM’s medium term loan guarantees to procure machinery by GEXIM for qualified Ghanaian Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).
Mr.Sylvester Mensah thanked the Acting President and Chairman of US EXIM for hosting the GEXIM delegation and reaffirmed the Ghanaian government’s commitment to strengthening trade and investment between Ghana and its global partners for economic transformation of Ghana with GEXIM playing a pivotal role.
The two teams will be meeting on the sidelines of the 2025 US EXIM Annual Conference on 29th and April 30, 2025 to explore possible areas of collaboration and matching Ghanaian businesses to American companies. The meeting ended with an exchange of gifts.
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Many SOEs have been used as mere instruments for personal wealth accumulation –Pres.Mahama
President John Dramani Mahama has expressed concern over the misuse of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) for personal financial gain by individuals in leadership positions.
Speaking during a meeting with Chief Executives of specified entities under the State Interest and Governance Authority (SIGA) on Thursday, March 13, the President directly attributed the dire state of SOEs to their leadership, accusing chief executives, management teams, and governing boards of prioritising personal enrichment over organisational efficiency.
He pointed to bloated budgets, unjustified allowances, and unnecessary expenditures as factors draining public funds while SOEs continue to rely on government bailouts.
“Many SOEs have been used as mere instruments for personal wealth accumulation by appointees. The chief executives, management, and boards of these enterprises are responsible for this situation. Some SOEs have become perennial loss-makers, draining public funds with bloated budgets, unjustified allowances, and unnecessary expenditures while relying on government bailouts as if entitled to them. Many of these entities are at their lowest point in the entire history of the Fourth Republic,” he said.
President Mahama further noted that many SOEs have been plagued by inefficiencies, corruption, and mismanagement, leading to consistent financial losses. He cited the 2023 State Ownership Report by the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA), which highlighted systemic inefficiencies and wasteful expenditures within these entities.
He therefore reaffirmed his commitment to reforming under-performing SOEs and ensuring they serve national interests.
He warned that loss-making SOEs will no longer be tolerated and will either be merged, privatised, or closed.
“I will assess you based on your performance. If you do not align with the pace of the reset agenda, you may be asked to step aside. If that adds to the horror movie, so be it,” he added.
Source: Myjoyonline.com
