Rather than seeking to scare the hell out of final year students by conducting rigorous body searches on them before they entered the exams hall, Mr John Alexander Ackon, the Ashanti Regional Minister is advocating for a better approach by invigilators.
Expressing strong reservations about the confrontational style being adopted by some invigilators who were working under the West African Exams Council,(WAEC)recently, Mr Ackon called for a change in approach.
According to the Minister, it was better to use an approach whereby the searches are done without letting the students feel intimidated before they entered the exams hall.
STRATEGY:
He proposed the deliberate creation of light hearted moments including jokes during the body search so as to allay any fear that may have arisen in the final year students.
The Minister maintained students were easily overcome by fear in the use of brute force and noted the female folks were at a bigger disadvantage since they are more frail than boys.
Speaking to one invigilator at the Manso Senior High School who was using rigorous force in conducting the search on a final year lady student, Mr Ackon cautioned against such method.
He stressed the use of encouraging words to calm the nerves of students before they were searched, adding the invigilator could continue with the search calmly if they managed to arouse cooperation from the students.
”Please before you search the students ensure that you smile at them as you calm their nervous hearts with encouraging words, while you look into their pockets gently and afterwards encourage them again before they enter the hall, Mr Ackon advised.
FIGURES:
The Minister, who was accompanied on the tour of the Amansie-West District by the Ashanti Regional Educational Director, Mrs Mary Owusu Achiaw, however, expressed happiness about the huge numbers of female students who were sitting for this year’s exams.
A total of 62,125 students in Ashanti were currently sitting for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination,(WASSCE).
Out of this, a whopping 30,838 girls were involved and this obviously excited the Regional Minister who formerly was a Deputy Minister for Gender and Child Protection.
GIRLS EDUCATION:
He insisted girls should be consciously and consistently pampered to enter into school since their eventual success in the area of education connotes better prospects for the society.
According to him, women were specially created by God to carry people along their path whether good or bad, stressing it lied on the society to ensure they give them the best of care, education and start-up capital so as to enable them turn out to become good persons.
