Ghana's Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu has directed the Ghana Education Service to work with the West African Examinations Council to immediately overhaul the logistics surrounding the distribution of examination question papers to centres nationwide, after 273 candidates at the Boako M/A Basic School in the Sefwi Wiawso Municipality waited more than 15 minutes for question papers while answer booklets had already been placed on their desks.

The incident occurred on Monday, May 4, at the opening of the 2026 BECE, as other centres across the country had already commenced examination 15 minutes earlier. The Minister, who was on a monitoring visit to the Western North Region alongside Ghana Education Service Director General Professor Ernest Kofi Davis, witnessed the delay firsthand and expressed visible irritation.

"Ordinarily, you should have been 15 minutes into the exams. Is that not right? Part of your training was that you should have been seated at 8:30 and start the exams at 9:00. But I see answer sheets without question papers, and they are now on their way. So we have to review how exam questions are transported to the examination centres. Director General, you sit on the WAEC Council, so we need immediate reforms," Iddrisu stated.

WAEC Head of Public Affairs John Kapi attributed the delays to the design of distribution routes managed at the local level by the GES, noting that the Council does not maintain a presence in every district. "We hope that in the coming days our depot keepers and our regional representatives will be in touch with the district authorities to make sure that they redesign the routes for the papers to get to the students early for the examination to start," Kapi disclosed.

Iddrisu also announced a review of the Computerised School Selection and Placement System, proposing that candidates be allowed to select their preferred schools after sitting their examinations rather than before.

On malpractice, the Minister cautioned that 178 candidates had results cancelled or withheld in the previous year, and that eight teachers implicated in malpractice had been prosecuted and dismissed from the GES. "We expect the highest standards of integrity from both candidates and invigilators," he added.

The Minister observed that facilities at the Boako centre were in a deteriorated state and pledged government intervention. "We have seen the state of the classrooms, and clearly, they are not in the best of shape. Government will respond to improve infrastructure and provide adequate learning materials," Iddrisu noted.

He also announced plans to construct a Technical and Vocational Education and Training Centre at Boako M/A School to support skills development in the area. The Minister visited four examination centres in the Sefwi Wiawso Municipality as part of a broader effort to assess educational infrastructure and examination conduct outside Accra.