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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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Swedru All Blacks back to winning ways, Roshan humble King Faisal
Sekondi Rospak FC made it eight wins in eight successive home games after three second-half goals from John Amoah, Joseph Ntow and Stephen Anthony Kofi. John Amoah opened the scoring in the 55th minute after a barren first half. Joseph Ntow added to the tally in the 56th minute before Stephen Anthony Kofi rounded things up in the 74th minute to give Rospak a 3-0 win over former Premier League side King Faisal.
Elsewhere at Swedru – leaders Swedru All Blacks humbled PAC Academy in an emphatic 2-0 win. Zayat Bubakari scored first for Swedru All Blacks in the 27th minute before Rudolf Junior Nana Kwasi Mensah made it 2-0 in the 34th minute. Swedru All Blacks are top of the table with 36 points – 4 points ahead of second placed Rospak FC.
Meanwhile, Former Premier League side Cape Coast Mysterious Dwarfs recorded their fourth successive home victory after beaten New Edubiase United 2-1 at the Robert Mensah Park. Enoch Odoom struck first for Cape Coast Mysterious Dwarfs in the 19th minute but Steven Asante equalized for New Edubiase United before halftime. After the interval, Godfred Eshun scored from distance in the 65th minute to help Cape Coast Mysterious Dwarfs secure all the points.
Here are the results in Zone Two
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Cervical Cancer alert: Avoid sex at early age
The Programmes Manager of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Mary Efua Commeh, has advised young girls to avoid sex at an early age.
This, she explained, will give the cervix the opportunity to mature before they become sexually active.
“You need to delay what we call the first sexual intercourse as much as possible to give the cervix the opportunity to mature before the person becomes sexually active,” she said.
Dr Commeh stated this in an interview with The Spectator in Accra on Tuesday as a part of the Cervical Cancer awareness month.
According to her, cervical cancer was the second leading female cancer in Ghana with a total of about 3,072 cases annually, and out of that, 1,815 deaths are recorded, representing more than 50 per cent.
She indicated that “If young girls are going to be sexually active, then you need to talk to your parents about being vaccinated.”
She explained that vaccinating young girls against human papillomavirus (HPV) has been found to be a very effective way of preventing cervical cancer.
“There are countries that started HPV vaccination years ago and they are not seeing any cervical cancers now because they would have eliminated most of the high-risk HPVs in their women. So if the high-risk HPV is not there, then obviously the results on cervical cancers are going to go down,” she added.
Dr Commmey said the HPV vaccination is recommended for young girls aged nine to 14 years, adding that it had been found to be highly effective, not just for cervical cancers but for other HPV-related cancers, such as anal cancers, cancers of the vagina, genital warts, amongst others.
She further elaborated that the idea is to put up a barrier before the HPV comes in and that once a young female encounters it, she is already protected.
She also mentioned that for cervical cancers, the main cause is called HPV infection, saying generally, all sexually active women acquire HPV at some point in their lives.
However, the Programmes Manager of NCDs at the GHS mentioned that the body has a way of clearing the HPV, explaining that it is a natural mechanism that goes on, unfortunately, there are a few women whose HPV persists.
Moreover, she noted that the numbers for Cervical Cancer tend to be much higher because at times, clients would wait, and try all sorts of medications before they finally report to the health facility saying “we actually lose some women before they get to the hospitals with over 75 per cent of the cases coming in its third and fourth stages.”
Dr Commey, therefore, called for public awareness while ensuring the availability of information for prevention and control.
By Jemima Esinam Kuatsinu
