By: Fuvi Kloku
Every year, Ghana reenacts a familiar ritual: the celebration of West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results. Predictably, the same elite institutions, Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School (PRESEC), Achimota, Holy Child etc. dominate the national conversation. Their triumphs are televised, tweeted, and toasted as evidence of academic superiority.
For decades, we accepted this hierarchy as natural, an outcome of better infrastructure, historical prestige, or the concentration of the nation’s brightest minds.
But former Education Minister ,Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum , has now exposed a deeper, structural asymmetry, one that transforms our education system into a quiet caste order. Speaking on Hot 93.9FM, he revealed a truth long whispered but rarely acknowledged: students in elite schools excel partly because their teachers double as WAEC examiners and markers.
This is not a minor footnote. It is a revelation that strikes at the heart of fairness, meritocracy, and national development.
The Pedagogical Asymmetry
The Pedagogical Asymmetry
Elite Schools
- Teachers act as WAEC examiners
- Insider knowledge of marking “codes”
- Teach exam mechanics, not just content
- High success; compounding prestige
Rural / Peri-Urban
- No access to marking schemes
- Reliance on rote learning
The Institutionalized “Cheat Code”
Dr. Adutwum’s recollection of moving from a village school to Kumasi High School,where he first encountered the concept of a marking scheme, is not just personal testimony, it is a national indictment.
WASSCE does not simply test what students know. It tests how they present that knowledge within rigid, examiner‑defined parameters.
- Examiner Advantage — Teachers who mark scripts gain tacit, insider knowledge: the keywords that unlock marks, the phrasing that signals mastery, the pitfalls that cost points.
- Classroom Subversion — When these examiners return to elite schools, they teach not just chemistry or literature, but the architecture of the marking scheme itself.
Meanwhile, a brilliant teacher in Saboba or Sefwi Wiawso teaches from the textbook, without access to the hidden rules of the game. Their students may understand the concepts, yet still fail the exam’s bureaucratic hurdles.
This is not an achievement gap. It is an information gap, a systemic inequity masquerading as meritocracy.
Is Post‑Retirement Deployment Enough?
Dr. Adutwum’s proposal to deploy retired examiners to struggling schools for five‑year contracts is well‑intentioned. But it is ultimately a palliative, not a cure.
- The pool of retired examiners is limited.
- Many may resist relocation to rural districts.
- The scale of inequity far exceeds the reach of such a program.
Redistributing human beings cannot fix a system built on asymmetric access to assessment literacy. We must instead democratize the code itself.
Roadmap to Equilibrium: Levelling the Field
- Open‑Source the “Black Box”
WAEC must stop treating marking schemes and chief examiners’ reports as classified documents.
Action:
Digitize and publish past marking schemes, annotated scripts, and examiner reports on a zero‑rated national learning portal accessible to every student and teacher.
This is the fastest way to eliminate the insider advantage.
- Institutionalize Assessment Literacy in Teacher Training
Assessment literacy must become a mandatory core module in all Colleges of Education and university education programs.
A newly posted teacher in Bunkpurugu should understand WAEC rubrics as well as a veteran examiner in Legon.
- National “Chief Examiner Masterclasses” via EdTech
Instead of relocating retirees, Ghana should scale their expertise digitally.
- Televised and streamed masterclasses
- Led by Chief Examiners
- Breaking down past papers, rubrics, and exemplar scripts
A student in a remote village should receive the same tactical briefing as a student in an elite urban school.
- Decentralize and Rotate WAEC Examiner Panels
GES should implement a quota system ensuring teachers from Category C and D schools are recruited and trained as examiners.
This creates local hubs of assessment literacy, organically spreading expertise across underserved regions.
The Philosophical Imperative
Education is often described as the great equalizer, the ladder by which the daughter of a farmer can rise to the same table as the son of a minister. But when the rules of academic survival are gatekept by institutional privilege, education becomes a conveyor belt for reproducing class advantage.
Dr. Adutwum’s candor must spark a national reckoning. We cannot continue applauding elite schools while ignoring the structural scaffolding that props up their dominance.
True reform requires us to look back, confront our failures, and correct them, the essence of Sankofa.
It is time to democratize the code.
Time to pull back the curtain on the marking scheme.
Time to ensure that every Ghanaian child, whether in Legon or Lambussie, has a fair and equal shot at excellence.
Brace yourself. In the video below, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum doesn’t just speak, he detonates a truth bomb that Ghana’s educational elite have tiptoed around for years. What he reveals forces us to confront the quiet architecture of inequality that has shaped WASSCE outcomes for decades. This is not a conversation for the faint‑hearted; it is a reckoning:
