Consumer advocacy group CUTS International, Accra, is calling on the government to take immediate action to remove the fees charged to students for accessing their BECE and WASSCE results, as well as SHS placement information, online.
In a recently issued statement, Mr. Appiah Kusi Adomako, West Africa Regional Director of CUTS International, Accra, urged the government to eliminate the fees students must pay to access their BECE and WASSCE results, as well as Senior High School (SHS) placement information online. He criticized the current system—where students are required to purchase scratch cards priced between GHS 15 and GHS 25—as unjust, exploitative, and bordering on extortion.
Mr. Adomako argued that accessing exam results should be a fundamental right, not a paid service, noting that many exam bodies globally, and even Ghanaian universities, provide free access to student results. He emphasized that WAEC previously covered the costs of printing and distributing results to schools before 2004, but the shift to digital platforms, while lowering administrative expenses, has placed the financial burden on students and families instead.
Highlighting the scale of the issue, he pointed out that with around 600,000 BECE candidates this year, WAEC could potentially earn up to GHS 9 million from result-checking fees alone. He stressed that digitization was intended to improve access and lower costs, not turn student information into a revenue source.
Mr. Adomako also compared Ghana’s system with other African countries like South Africa, Egypt, Kenya, and Zambia, where students access results online for free. He questioned why Ghana treats national exams differently when students can freely access results from international exams like the SAT, GRE, and IELTS.
He further criticized the fees imposed for accessing school placement information through the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS), saying it contradicts the system’s goal of enhancing transparency and reducing manual interference.
Calling the practice “illegal and unfair,” CUTS has appealed to the Ministry of Education, Ghana Education Service (GES), and the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education to intervene and stop these charges.
#ScrapExamFees #FreeResultsAccess #EducationForAll #StopTheCharges #FairEducationGH
