A total of 154 out of 322 final-year students of Sekondi College were prevented from writing their Chemistry paper after arriving late at the examination centre.
Information available to ConnectNews indicates that the affected candidates, the majority of whom were boarders, failed to report to the examination hall before the commencement of the paper and were subsequently denied entry by a WAEC official stationed at the centre.
According to some of the affected students, heavy rainfall that persisted for several hours before the examination delayed their movement from the dormitories to the examination venue.
Despite repeated appeals by the school’s PTA Chairman, management, and regional officials of the Ghana Education Service (GES), the WAEC official reportedly refused to grant the students access to the examination hall.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that WAEC officials questioned why a number of day students had managed to arrive on time and were already seated in the hall despite the rains while the affected boarders who are few meters away from the examination centre had not.
Interestingly, some day students who arrived after the commencement of the paper were reportedly allowed entry.
The incident is allegedly linked to a new WAEC directive which bars candidates from entering the examination hall once a paper has begun.
However, the affected students maintain that the torrential rains made it impossible for them to leave their dormitories on time. Some insist they were only a few minutes late and should have been given the opportunity to write the examination.
“Considering our numbers, it was clearly not deliberate,” one student said. “We were only a few minutes late. The WAEC official could have exercised some discretion. It is heartbreaking that we were denied the chance to write the paper.”
Some of the candidates who managed to write the examination said the absence of their colleagues affected them emotionally during the paper.
ConnectNews has reliably gathered that WAEC had received intelligence suggesting that some schools were experiencing issues with lateness and had consequently dispatched inspection teams to monitor compliance.
One such team, which was reportedly en route to Shama, is said to have redirected to Sekondi College and arrived at the centre while the incident was unfolding, seemingly confirming earlier reports.
By Eric Yaw Adjei
