Member countries of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) will converge in Accra from today (Tuesday) for the 74th Annual Council Meeting, to take some critical decisions and chart the way forward for the sub-regional assessment body.
The meeting is rotated among member countries of WAEC – The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, every five years.
The last time Ghana hosted the meeting in-person was in 2016.
The 69th Annual Council Meeting hosted by the government of Ghana in March 2021 was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Briefing
At a press soiree in Accra last Tuesday to brief journalists on the upcoming meeting, the Registrar of WAEC, Alhaji Pateh Bah, in an address read on his behalf, said the hosting of the Annual Council Meeting was based on an agreed-upon rotational arrangement among the five member countries of WAEC – The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone.
By arrangement, he said each country hosted the meeting once every five years, and after the meeting, it must complete a full cycle among the five countries.
He explained that a whole lot of activities had been lined up for the weeklong series of meetings.
“For example, on that Tuesday, in the morning hours, the chairman of the council will lead a delegation to the President of the Republic of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, the Minister of Education, Haruna Idrissu, and the Greater Accra Regional Minister, Linda Obenewaa Akweley Ocloo, for courtesy visits.
“In addition, on that same Tuesday afternoon, we will hold the formal opening of the 74th Annual Council Meeting, to be declared open by the President of Ghana.
At this ceremony, three Ghanaians will be honoured with the Excellence Awards for their outstanding performance in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) conducted in 2025 in the five member countries,” he said.
Alhaji Bah said an eminent citizen of Ghana, Prof. William Afiakwa Asomaning, will also be honoured with the Distinguished Friends of Council Award for his contribution to the success of WAEC in Ghana and in the sub-region in general.
Then on Wednesday by 2 p.m., he said, the 31st in the series of the Annual WAEC Endowment Fund Lectures will be delivered by the Technical Advisor to the Minister of Education, Prof. George K. T. Oduro, on the topic: “Fostering Assessment Integrity within a Cultural Context of Credentialism”.
Institution
The Registrar of WAEC said the council remained the only colonial institution to have survived the centrifugal forces of the post-independence era in West Africa.
He said while all other sub-regional institutions established during the colonial era had since gone defunct, WAEC had continued to thrive and is today one of the leading and respected examining authorities in the world.
For her part, the Head of National Office of WAEC, Dr Rosemond Wilson, said the meeting was not only an important institutional responsibility but also a moment of significance for the country’s education and assessment landscape and for the wider West African sub-region.
She said the meeting with the media was intentionally organised since the council valued the role of the media as key partners in public education, public accountability and national development.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh