The Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Adutwum has responded to public outrage on procurement of past questions and answer booklets from WAEC.
Below are some facts posted on his Facebook timeline.
1. In 2019, MoE procured 361,755 booklets of WAEC past questions and examiners’ reports on WASSCE (for all 4 core subjects contained in a 430-page booklet) at the unit cost of Ghc71.25 per booklet.
This booklet contained past questions and examiners’ reports from 2013 to 2018.
2. In 2021, the Ministry procured 446,954 booklets at the unit cost of Ghc78 per booklet (457 pages, covering past questions and examiners’ reports from 2015 to 2020).
3. These procurements were done through a Free SHS account and in compliance with due process.
4. Procurement was done by due process of PPA approval through sole-sourcing with full consideration of value for money.
5. WAEC owns the copyright to WAEC past questions and examiners report and therefore any publisher who engages in the reproduction of any WAEC material does so in contravention of the law. Given this, WAEC granted the sole right of reproduction to Kingdom Books. Kingdom Books having obtained the right for reproduction from WAEC and being the sole publisher who held such right, was engaged by the Ministry for the procurement. To date, Kingdom Books reserves the sole right for the reproduction of such WAEC materials. When more publishers can secure similar rights from the appropriate outfit (WAEC), competitive tendering may be occasioned in the future.
6. The concept of preparing students to pass exams is best practice. Many countries, institutions, and international exam bodies i.e. Cambridge, IB, SAT, LSAT, IELT, etc make provision for past questions and examiners’ reports available to be accessed by students at a fee, far more expensive than the unit cost of this transaction.
7. Key interventions deployed to ensure improved learning outcomes include the payment of interventions money, supply of all core textbooks to students and elective textbooks for access in school libraries, past questions, and examiners report among others, accounted for the sterling WASSCE 2020 performance which recorded over 50% A1 to C6 score in all core subjects as well as 411 out of 465 students who obtained A1 in all subjects, are Ghanaian students.
8. It’s prudent to view the total sum expended in this year’s and previous year’s procurement within the context of a total number of final year students across the country.
Source: Mybrytfmonline.com
