The West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) has taken a different turn this year as the third and fourth year students of Senior High Schools (SHS) have merged to write the annual examination.
This was due to the fact that under the former President Kufuor�s administration, the duration of SHS was increased from three to four years but when President Mills assumed office in 2009, the government reverted it to three years.
This year 409,832 registered candidates are expected to sit for the WASSCE examination throughout the country.
The annual examination which commenced yesterday throughout the West African Anglophonic countries is expected to continue with core and elective subjects of various disciplines in the school.
Some other schools however hosted other senior high schools which made accommodation more challenging.
A visit by DAILY GUIDE, to some of the schools in Accra revealed that students have been divided into batches due to lack of space to accommodate over thousand students in the school who are sitting for the examination.
However it was observed that, examination apparatus were available to students with a number of supervisors, a police officer and health personnel at the examination halls visited.
It was also reveled that some schools in Accra have extended their examination halls to the class rooms in order to cater for the increased number of candidates writing the exams.
Two year three students whose names were not disclosed to this paper at the Odorgonnor Senior High School raised concern over the academic performance of their year group since they did not have ample time to study compared to the fourth year students and hoped the examination questions would be favorable for the third year students.
According to Samuel Ofori-Adjei, headmaster of Accra Academy Senior High and the head of Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS), the combination of the third and fourth year students was not the best.
He said the administration has put several measures in place for the third year students not to be disadvantaged adding that, form three students had to stay during the holidays to finish the syllabus to ensure that all the students were fully prepared.
Mr Ofori-Adjei, mentioned that the number of students for the third and fourth year batches was about 1200 which demanded spacious halls and additional classrooms to occupy the students.
He therefore noted that due to the current situation the students have been divided into 10 batches because of the English oral which demands the use of electrical devises.
He said two students from the third and fourth batches who had registered for the WASSCE were unable to write the first paper as they brought their medical report to confirm they have been hospitalized.
�We don�t think that this thing should happen again where we have two different year groups of writing the same examination. I think it is not the best although certain students because of their intelligence can make the 8As within two years,� he noted.
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