Professor Emeritus Stephen Adei of Ashesi University has described the recent wave of widespread examination malpractice in Ghana as a symptom of a deeper national crisis, pointing to what he calls “schooling without learning” and a society sinking into moral decline.
Prof Adei reacted to a Joy News documentary that revealed how some invigilators openly demand “tokens” of about GH¢60 per day, while supervisors receive envelopes of roughly GH¢400.
Candidates are also made to contribute to an “Aseda Offertory,” a coded system used to facilitate cheating during exams.
“What is happening is a reflection of the moral degradation in our society,” Prof Adei said in a radio interview on Joy FM.
“When you see politicians openly bribing their way, when people say that so long as we get money, even if we poison the whole nation, we don’t care… corruption in the public sector, the decadence in the homes, because it’s parents who are sponsoring this.”
Prof Adei also criticised the state of basic education, describing it as the root cause of the problem.
“Our primary schools, in the public sector, practically, the children go to school totally illiterate. While if you go to a place like Togo, by the second year in primary school, every child is literate,” he lamented.
Citing a 2016 World Bank report, he warned that Ghana faces a crisis where students are going through school but not actually learning.
“We have what is called schooling without learning. If this is not addressed, these people therefore go through, and they have to have a way of getting some certificate anyway… hook or by crook,” Prof Adei said.
