Three Ghanaians have, for the first time swept prizes in the 2008 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) National Excellence Awards scheduled for Freetown, Sierra Leone in March this year. Miss Priscilla Asafo-Adjei of St. Louis Senior High School, Kumasi took the over-all best award, while Ms. Josephine Tsorgali, also of St. Louis and David Kofi Nyarko, Adisadel Senior High School were the runners up. They were also honoured by the Ghana National Excellence Awards Scheme. Ms. Asafo-Adjei also won the best candidate in General Science. The scheme is a product of the International Excellence Awards which was instituted under the West African Examination’s Council Endowment Fund to reward outstanding performance of school candidates in the Council examinations as a way of encouraging hard work and honesty among students and the youth. Mr. Alex Tettey-Enyo, Minister of Education said it was gratifying that, Ghanaian students were carving a niche for themselves at the international level and saluted the gallant youth who achieved the remarkable feat, adding that the initiative taken by the previous government to promote the girl-child education, especially in Science and Mathematics had yielded fruitful results. He commended the WAEC for publishing the names of schools involved in Examination irregularities in the newspapers as a means to addressing the increasing incidence of examination malpractices and welcomed the WAEC law (Act 719) which prescribes stiffer punishment for persons who indulged in malpractices. He called on the Judiciary to review the degree of punitive measures to be imposed in such instances to send a clear message to prospective offenders. Mr Samuel Bannerman-Mensah, Director-General of the Ghana Education Service said, although the performance of candidates in English language for 2008 WASSCE was better than 2007, only 26 per cent of candidates obtained credit passes in Mathematics and Integrated Science. This, he said was sad and urged students to overcome the phobia for Mathematics and English Language. Plaques were given to the former schools of the award winners. Source: GNA YOAP/REA 20 Feb. 09