Let me begin by providing the context and the description of what the former president said;

A problem of national magnitude beholds us in Ghana. The standard of our education must be of concern to us all, no matter your party colour. Hardwork is not the only influencer of good grades. Cheating can also produce good grades, but the effect of a good grade emanating from cheating is dire. That is the context within which the former president spoke.

For purposes of ease of reference, let me also quote what the former president said relative to his position that teachers aid students to engage in examination malpractices.

Descriptive:

"In MANY places, they let the children cheat. You go to places, and the teachers are conniving with the students to cheat. The effect will be seen later".

An appreciation of logic will highlight to us the difference between MANY and ALL, and how their wrongful usage or lack of understanding of same can lead to the commission of fallacies as we were taught in PHIL 101 at the University of Ghana.

If this is what former president Mahama said, then why will anybody without party political intent conclude that he meant ALL teachers connive with students to cheat? How can that also imply that he meant ALL the students who sat for the examination cheated?

What is the reality?

In 2022, the West African Examination Council cancelled subject results of 3,845 candidates who sat for that year's examination. WAEC cited the smuggling of foreign materials into the examination hall.

The entire results of 518 candidates were also cancelled for sending mobile phones into the examination hall. In fact, the exam council has also indicated that the entire results of 117 candidates were also withheld pending conclusions into investigation into alleged cases of impersonation detected during the examination.

In 2021, WAEC disclosed that subject results of 1,339 candidates who sat for the WASSCE examination have been cancelled, and the entire results of 174 candidates have also been cancelled for various examination malpractices including collusion (with teachers?). WAEC, is additionally scrutinizing the scripts of 194 schools for various levels of same examination malpractices, including collusion (with teachers?).

To be honest, it is only an ostrich thinker who will posit that the former president said what was not the case. The challenges of the Free SHS should not be necessarily veiled with artificially manufactured grades.

Corruption Watch in 2021 after painstaking investigations revealed that some schools in Ashanti and Bono Regions levied students in exchange for help to solve examination questions. At All for Christ Mission School, for instance, the levies were put into a pool to be used to influence teachers and invigilators to solve examination questions for the students in the examination hall. Same situation reflected at Duadaso No. 1 senior High in the Bono region.

It is a populist adventure for the Vice president to issue a statement communicating that somebody is downplaying the efforts of WASSCE Students. Indeed, that adventure of his (the vice president) only puts his patriotism in doubt, and makes it very easy to view him as a homosapien who is ready to go all miles (including promising a Car for Ghana card) to sacrifice the call for addressing a critical educational albatross just for the sake of power.

NOTE that, in this current 2023 examinations, subject results of 235 schools have been withheld by WAEC because candidates of these schools provided artificially intelligent answers to questions.

Have you concluded that MANY teachers are not aware of this cheating scheme? and that WAEC is also not aware that many teachers aid candidates to cheat in examinations?

Time will tell.