He said government contin­ued to invest in education with emphasis on both access and quality and the resultant effect was the overwhelming performance of Ghanaian students in the WAS­SCE.

Speaking to the Ghanaian Times in Accra yesterday, Dr Nkansah said the quality of education had and continuesto improve under the current leadership.

He noted that any fear of qual­ity being compromised had prov­en to be unfounded as Ghanaian students continued to dominate in the annual West African Examina­tions Council (WAEC) Interna­tional Excellence Awards.
    

He noted that three Senior High School (SHS) graduates who participated in the 2023 WASSCE grabbed the first, second and third positions in the WAEC-IEA.

The awards ceremony was organised during the 72nd Annual Council Meeting held in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on Tuesday, March 19.

Master Amo-Kodieh Leonard Kofi Marton from the St James Seminary Senior High School came first, Dzandub Selormb from Labone Senior High School placed second and Daniel Asenso-Gyam­bibi also from St James Seminary placed third.

The three topped the 2,327,342 candidates who sat for the WAS­SCE (SC) 2023 in the five member countries of WAEC.

For the first prize, the overall best student took home $1500, the second-place winner received a second-prize award of $1200 and the third-prize winner received $900 from the WAEC Endowment Fund.

Currently, Mr Amo-Kodieh and Mr Dzandu are both reading Medicine at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technol­ogy while Mr Asenso-Gyambibi is a student at the Ashesi University.

 The International Excellence Awards for WASCCE candidates are presented to the three (3) overall best candidates from the member countries that subscribe to the WASSCE, namely the Gambia, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.

Representing Ghana at the awards ceremony were council members of the WAEC, led by

 the Chief Government nominee, who is also the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Dr Eric Nkansah; Gha­na’s Non-Council Member on the Board of Trustees of the WAEC Endowment Fund, Nana Appiagyei Dankawoso I; the Chief Director of the Ministry of Education, Mrs Mamle Andrews; the Head of National Office (HNO), Wendy Enyonam Addy-Lamptey, and all the other members.

The International Excellence Awards was instituted in 1985 to reward and celebrate candidates with outstanding performance in the Council’s Senior High School Certificate examinations.