The President's message to the "Akufo-Addo graduates"

President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has sent his well wishes to the over 300,000 students that will be sitting for the 2020 West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), starting on Monday, July 20, 2020.

This year’s graduates would be the first batch of the Free SHS programme beneficiaries, the reason the President refers to them as the “Akufo-Addo graduates”.

“I send best wishes to the three hundred and thirteen thousand, eight hundred and thirty-seven (313,837) final year Senior High School students who will from Monday 20th July take the West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).”

The President has also asked students, teachers and invigilators who will be involved in the conduct of the examination to abide by the COVID-19 protocols.

“Just as has been done over the course of the last four weeks, since their return to school, I continue to urge everyone associated with the conduct of this year’s WASSCE, i.e teaching and non-teaching staff, invigilators and students, to abide by the enhanced hygiene, mask-wearing and social distancing protocols they have become accustomed to. They continue to remain our weapons in the fight to defeat COVID-19,” the President said.

The West African Examination Council (WAEC) which conducts the WASSCE concurrently in anglophone West Africa; Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, The Gambia and Liberia announced on 20th March 2020 that it was indefinitely suspending the annual exam due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, upon discussions with Ghana following the country’s decision to ease COVID-19 restrictions and allow final year students return to school, it was agreed that the exams will be held independently for Ghana.

The timetable for this year’s WASSCE will begin with Project Work for Visual Arts candidates on Monday, July, 20, 2020, while the theory papers will begin from August 3, 2020, till September 5, 2020.