The Ghana Education Service (GES) has stated that students for the 2020 West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) will still write the examinations despite COVID-19 concerns in the country.

According to the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the GES, Cassandra Twum Ampofo, it has not received any directive on the examinations, therefore, the West African Examination Council (WAEC), will hold the exams for the Senior High School candidates.

“We’re going ahead with the WASSCE, we’ve not received any directive to hold on. We are going to conduct the exams and WAEC is preparing for that,” she said, adding that the GES is prepared and the safety of the students in schools during the exams.

“We get reports from our heads, and currently, I can confirm the ones at Mfantsipim and Konongo Senior High School but we are not aware of Odogorno. It came out yesterday but it’s not true and so we receive such reports from the schools.”

“We have holding rooms in all the schools and we have trained health personnel there so when they come across any COVID-19 symptoms, the person is isolated. We have also mapped all schools to a health facility,” she said in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM.

Already, WAEC has released a fresh timetable for the 2020 WASSCE.

This comes after WAEC submitted the timetable to the Ministry of Education and the examination would commence from Monday, July 20, 2020, with Project Work for Visual Arts candidates, while the theory papers will start from August 3, 2020, until September 5, 2020, when the five-week-long examination will be brought to an end with Principles of Cost Accounting and Technical Drawing.

Mrs. Wendy Enyonam Addy-Lamptey, the Head of the Ghana National Office of WAEC, said the dateline for the WASSCE had already been decided on with the Ghana Education Service.