Eight months after the release of GhProbe and JoyNews’ collaborative investigative piece, Dark World of BECE… GES officials Compromise Test’ integrity that exposed the corrupt practices within the Ghana Education Service (GES) in the conduct of the 2025 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), the Service now says it has banned all teachers and invigilators implicated for their involvement in malpractices during the exam from taking part in this year’s exercise.

The GhProbe report exposed how top GES staff mandated to police the examination rather institutionalized examination malpractice, broke the rules and actually served as watchdogs against external West African Examination Council (WAEC) and National Security officials to ensure candidates pass at all costs.

GhProbe further found that the cabal comprised examination supervisors and their deputies, head teachers, invigilators, teachers and – in some instances – School Improvement Support Officers, as well as the candidates who were the beneficiaries of the crime; all ensuring that the candidates pass every single subject through no effort of theirs.

Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Thursday, April 30, 2026 ahead of the 2026 BECE which is scheduled to commence on Monday, May 4, 2026 and end on Monday, April 11, 2026, the Director-General of GES, Prof. Ernest Kofi Davis said reports of examination malpractices in the 2025 BECE were at various statges of completion.

“In fact, the Joy expose’ last year, the final report got to me last week so they went through the process, brought all the parties, the final report has been brought to us, we will review and then take it to Council and then once we receive Council’s blessing to trigger the proposed sanctions, we will do,” he announced.

On the offences, he said: “We have mobile phone related offences, 17 of them, distribution of prepared questions of answers, 13 cases, solving cases for candidates, I have six cases, possession of unauthorized materials, I have four cases, organised coordinated malpractice, I have three cases, leakage, I have one case. Financially motivated practice like bribery, I have a case we are looking at and then dictating answers, I have a case before us.”

According to him, pending the GES Council’s approval of recommended sanction, officials implicated in the 2025 examination were restricted from BECE related duties: “I wish to remind all supervisors and regional directors of education that all teachers and supervisors who were linked to examination malpractice last year, and are being processed for sanctions are banned from the examination centers. They are not expected to have anything to do with the examination. We expect you to follow the directive strictly. Letters have been sent to all regional directors.”

Prof. Davis said the decision by the GES aims to restore credibility and public confidence in the examination process. He said the GES has vetted 21,791 invigilators this year to oversee the exams across the country.

A total of 620,141 candidates will sit for the exams across the country, made up of 304,349 boys and 315,792 girls from 20,395 schools.

GES Committee

Following the release of investigative piece, the GES began a probe at the circuit level where multiple meetings were held to establish how their system was infiltrated by journalists.

GhProbe gathered that on September 10, 2025, some invigilators were summoned to appear before the Accra Metro Education Director.

The GES further constituted a committee to probe the findings of the investigation and submit its report in one week. The committee was made of Dr. Munawaru Issahaque, Deputy Director-General Quality and Access, Mr. John Kapi, WAEC, Hajia Katumi Natogmah, Greater Accra Regional Director and Mr Prince Charles Agyemann-Duah, Director of Schools and Instruction Division, GES.

Other members were Ms Angela Nkansah, Director, HRMD, Hajia Bintu Fati Adamu, TEWU representative in GES Council, Rev. Bismark A. Akandi, immediate past chief internal auditor of GES, President of Conference of Heads of Basic Schools and Daniel Fenyi, Public Relations Officer of GES.

The committee invited the investigative journalist, Francisca Enchill, to appear before it on Tuesday, November 11, 2025. The investigator honoured the invitation with two members of her team.