Sierra Leone Telegraph: 10 June 2017
Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Czar has confirmed the arrest of three West African Examination Council (WAEC) examiners for alleged corruption offences, involving examination malpractice.
Examination fraud and related illegal activities is a big business in Sierra Leone, controlled and managed by organized criminals. Many of those involved are teachers working across several of the country’s under-resourced struggling schools.
Wealthy parents of underachieved school children in poor performing schools are paying millions of Leones to corrupt and poorly paid school teachers and examination officers, to provide unfair examination advantage for their children.
School children are offered the chance of illegally resitting their exam papers, long after the closing date, with the help of examiners. The sale of exams question papers is also quite common.
The director of public education and outreach at the Anti-Corruption Commission made a statement yesterday, on the arrest of three teachers who are now helping the ACC with their investigations. This is what he said:
“The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) on Thursday 8th June, 2017, responding to a tip off, arrested Messrs Marveh Francis Kamara, Amara Kamara and Mohamed Momoh, teachers of the Ansarul Islamic Secondary School, Kenema, who are also Examiners of the West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for alleged corruption offences.
“The said teachers are marking the March 2017 WASSCE papers on English Language, History and Literature and allegedly asked pupils to pay the sum of One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Leones (Le150,000) for each subject, so that they could rewrite the exams at a secret location at Kamara Street, Allen Town, to enable them pass the papers.
“A team of ACC investigators raided the premises and effected arrest on the three teachers, with three girls and two boys suspected to be pupils who were rewriting the exams.
“Another male was also arrested who is suspected to be the landlord of the premises where the malpractices occurred. They are in custody helping the ACC with its investigation.
“The move was part of the Commission’s focus to improving integrity in the Educational Sector. The Commission wishes to assure the public that it will continue to be vigilant in detecting and preventing corruption nationwide.”
It is by no coincidence that having been in the hot sits recently about corrupt practices, the Sierra Leone branch of the West African Examination Council (WAEC), with the help of the country’s “corruption czar” Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), has now found the perfect scapegoats to divert negative attention from the agency.
It is unfortunate that instead of truly looking into WAEC malpractices that are dumbing down generations and hurting the entire education system in the country, the ACC, as usual, has stepped in to pick on the little fish in order to shield and protect the big fish in the pond. Read more: https://mamasalone.wordpress.com/
Thanks for this revelation but there are more to this than what has been revealed. What about those wealthy and highly influential people whose children are studying overseas using manipulated and fake results purportedly prepared by WAEC officials at an undisclosed fees? What about those who chase their papers – BECE, WAEC, College and universities comprehensive exams? What about those who inherit certificates of those they carry the same name with after their death? Very common where sur names are common eg. Kamaras, Koromas, Bangura etc.What about schools and colleges where pupils and students pay for each subject if they want to pass that subject? It is only the poor ones that are targeted by ACC but not the politicians and the rich. Majority of ACC investigation has targeted the poor and middle level while the upper class continue to glory outside the net.
Education has declined since the introduction of 6-3-3-4 and the shift sysem and is getting worse by money-exam.