University entrance exams not practicable – Nsowah

A former Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Michael Nsowah, has said it may not be feasible conducting university entrance examinations for applicants to undergraduate programmes following calls for its reintroduction on the back of leakages in the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (WASSCE).

Mr Nsowah’s remarks come after a call by former Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) Rector Professor Stephen Adei for the conduct of entrance examination in varsities for persons applying with WASSCE grades given that the constant leakage of the exam has compromised its credibility.

Four papers in the 2016 WASSCE – Oral English, Integrated Science, Social Studies, and Physics – were available to some candidates on the eve of the exams.

The leaked papers were circulating on social media and this has raised concerns over the credibility of officials working with the examining body.

But Mr Nsowah wondered if that would be practicable given the large number of public varsity applicants.

He explained that such exams were conducted in the past when candidates were fewer, but currently with some public universities admitting as many as 15000 students, “it would be a strain on the resources of the institution and the lecturers”.

He told Naa Atswei Oduro on Accra News Saturday April 9: “I do not know how many days that will take [to test and interview applicants], but if you are to give every applicant five minutes, for example, that will take a whole year. So, then, they decided to base their selections on WAEC results.”

The former educationist added that admission of such students through such means “would have been a good idea, but there is not much time, for which reason entrance exams and interviews have been scrapped”.

“I do not know if the various [university] departments can have the means to do that [conduct such tests and interviews], but if they can, then nothing bars them from implementing such decision in order to admit those who are best qualified not only in terms of grades but their preparedness for university studies,” he suggested.