The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has released the timetable for the August 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

The timetable, which has been submitted to the Ministry of Education, is expected to begin on Monday, July 20, 2020 with Project Work for Visual Arts candidates, while the theory papers will start from August 3, 2020 until September 5, 2020, when the five-week long examination will be brought to an end with Principles of Cost Accounting and Technical Drawing.

In an interview  with the Daily Graphic, the Head of the Ghana National Office of WAEC, Mrs Wendy Enyonam Addy-Lamptey, said the dateline for the WASSCE had already been agreed on with the Ghana Education Service and so the timetable was to guide the students in their preparations.

Subjects

In all,  60 subjects, made up of four core and 56 elective subjects, have been made available to the candidates.

The subjects cover the seven programmes offered at senior high school (SHS), namely, General Arts, General Science, Business, Agricultural Science, Visual Arts, Home Economics and Technical.

Fake information

Ahead of releasing the timetable, WAEC had been concerned about the number of rogue website operators who were peddling false information from fake websites flooded with fake timetables, fake examination question papers and other examination-related information.

Mrs Addy-Lamptey cautioned the public, particularly candidates preparing for the WASSCE, to be wary of operators of such rogue websites.

She said ever since the President announced guidelines for the gradual reopening of schools for final-year students, such websites which had initially disappeared had been resurfacing.

She said some of those websites had released fake examination timetables and question papers as authentic ones and urged heads of schools and the candidates in general to wait for the authentic timetable which would be officially communicated to them at the appropriate time and also posted on the WAEC official website.

“We are well aware that some of those websites have posted fake timetables for WASSCE and BECE candidates and that is why we are putting out this caution,” she explained.

She added that WAEC had already started printing copies of the timetable to be distributed to all participating schools and gave an assurance that the copies would get to the schools in good time before the commencement of the examination.

Rogue websites

Mrs Addy-Lamptey indicated that as many as 21 of such rogue websites had sprung up with interesting and attractive names to lure unsuspecting candidates, but stressed that they were all rogue websites and fake and cautioned students not to fall prey to them.

She said the activities of those websites included the publication of fake examination papers, fake examination timetable, deceit of unsuspecting candidates and the public to upgrade their examination results, among–– others.

Some of the rogue websites, as identified by WAEC, include “WAEC Exams Room”, “WAEC - Seekers Exams Leaks”, “WAEC Pass Examination”, “WASSCE Results Upgrade WAEC for 2020”, “West Africa Exams Links” and “WAEC Secret Room”.

Others are “WAEC Spark WAEC”, “Ghana Education News”, “WAEC Update”, “WAEC 2020”, “WAEC Authentic Hub”, “WAEC Ghana” and “WAEC Union”.

Threat to credible exams

Mrs Addy-Lamptey described those websites and their activities as the greatest threat to the credibility of the certificates issued by WAEC and, therefore, advised candidates to “desist from dealing with such websites and feel free to contact WAEC offices or contact the WAEC website: www.waecgh.org, for any assistance”.

The Head of the Ghana National Office of the WAEC asked for the collective support of parents, invigilators, supervisors and all those who had a role to play in the writing of the WASSCE to help ensure that “we have a credible examination”.

She reminded the candidates that there was no reason for them to fear the examination if they prepared very well, adding that it was because of that that the government had offered them the opportunity to be in school with their teachers to prepare for their final examination.