A feature by Dora Jones Yaidoo
Accra, May 1, GNA – For generations, Ghanaians learned through informal education (family apprenticeship, communal work, storytelling, and observation). In modern times, formal schooling has become the primary and most socially recognised pathway to learning, advancement, and professional qualifications.
Degrees and certificates signal readiness for responsibility. Yet a certificate that does not reflect knowledge, skill, and character is a fragile credential, especially in critical professions like teaching and health care.
Education develops knowledge, critical thinking, analytic ability, problemsolving capacity, and character. It is not preparation for life; it is life itself, as stated by John Dewey, an American Education Reformer.
Like any powerful tool, education can be used wisely or misused. In recent years, concerns have been raised that Ghana’s formal academic system is drifting towards superficial success – where passing examinations is prioritised over genuine understanding and critical thinking.
This trend risks producing graduates who hold certificates but lack the practical competence and creativity needed to solve real-world problems. If left unaddressed, it could undermine national development, weaken professional standards, and erode public trust in our institutions.
Unless we act decisively to refocus education on depth, integrity, and skills, we risk nurturing a time bomb with far-reaching consequences for the country’s future.
Key definitions
Education: A structured or unstructured process of learning, that is receiving or giving systematic instruction in schools, colleges, training centres, communities, workplaces, or through lived experience.
Quality (in education): The degree to which learning experiences produce meaningful, lasting understanding; transferable skills; sound judgment; and ethical practice. Quality differentiates true competence from mere credentialing.
Passco (also spelt Pasco): A locally used term for past question collections of previously administered examination items (often with suggested answers) used by students and teachers to prepare for future exams. Originally intended as a revision resource, Passco has, in many settings, become the central curriculum driver.
In Ghana today, passco has shifted from being a helpful revision aid to becoming the dominant route many learners take in preparing for high‑stakes exams.
Passco is not the villain. Depending on it instead of learning is the problem. It familiarises learners with exam format, wording, and expected depth of answers. It builds confidence when students see repeated question types and know they can respond. It can be a useful trigger for further reading and discussion.
Passco harms when it replaces textbooks, primary sources, and practical work with narrow question spotting. It encourages memorisation of specific answers, not understanding concepts. It invites teachers and examiners to recycle items, which weakens the credibility of the exam. The central argument of this feature is: Passco is not the problem. Overreliance on it is.
Certificates without Competence
The pursuit of academic achievement is noble. Families sacrifice; students strive; communities celebrate graduates. Yet too much of today’s effort is directed at acquiring certificates rather than gaining knowledge. A painful pattern is emerging:
Students in universities, training colleges, and professional programmes invest heavily in buying, sharing, and memorising Passco compilations, sometimes at the expense of reading texts, attending fully to instruction, or engaging in practical work.
Some educators, pressured by large class sizes, limited time, or habit, recycle the same or similar questions year after year. Students, aware of this trend, narrow their preparation accordingly.
High‑stakes national exams (for example, BECE, WASSCE, and professional licensure) create intense pressure to “teach to the test,” reinforcing a surface‑learning culture.
The consequence is individuals holding strong‑looking certificates but lacking the depth those credentials imply. In sensitive sectors such as teaching, nursing, and public health, the risks are real – miscommunication, errors in care, weak instructional delivery, and reduced public confidence.
How the Passco Culture Took Root
Several reinforcing forces have elevated Passco from a revision tool to a de facto main curriculum. Highstakes transition and selection exams.
Placement into senior high school, tertiary training, and jobs often hinges on exam scores. Stakeholders naturally chase what counts. When one exam decides so much, predicting questions becomes a survival strategy, not just a study habit.
When exam formats and question styles change little, past papers become strong predictors. This tempts teachers and students to rely on them, especially where resources such as textbooks and internet‑based materials are scarce.
Large enrolments stretch teachers and lecturers. Setting fresh items, marking frequent quizzes, and giving feedback takes time. Reusing past questions becomes a coping mechanism, not a choice made with care.
A thriving market prints, bundles, and sells Passco books and answer digests. Street vendors, bookstores, and digital chat groups make access easy and socially normal. Some students treat Passco as a shortcut; others feel they have no real alternative.
“When everyone is doing Passco, you dare not ignore it.” Students fear being disadvantaged if they focus on understanding while their peers memorise likely questions. In some communities, not buying Passco is seen as irresponsible.
Overreliance on Passco
Memorising specific answers narrows cognitive engagement. Learners may pass tests yet fail to transfer knowledge to new contexts. Education becomes “chew, pour, pass, and forget,” not understanding built for life.
If assessment items repeat, students need not analyse, synthesise, or evaluate core skills for innovation, citizenship, and professional practice. They learn to recognise patterns, not to reason.
Students who “study the Passco” often neglect textbooks, primary sources, lab manuals, and field practice. Curiosity declines. They may pass exams without having read a full textbook cover‑to‑cover.
When large portions of test banks become public through repeated reuse, exam validity is compromised. Scores no longer reflect independent mastery. The exam, in effect, stops telling the truth.
Professional Competence Gaps
In health care, for example, newly posted staff who clear licensure exams may be unable to recall basic definitions (for example, “health” per the World Health Organisation) or perform foundational procedures such as safe eye cleaning, instilling ear drops, or setting an infusion correctly. Similar gaps show up in education, where some teachers struggle to explain the eight parts of speech (a building block for effective English communication).
Reliance on templated written responses (increasingly aided by AI tools) hides underlying language weakness. In face‑to‑face settings (ward rounds, classrooms, community outreach), the deficit becomes clear.
When a system signals that “spotting questions” beats “understanding,” it unintentionally teaches shortcuts over integrity. As Franklin D. Roosevelt warned, educating the mind without morals risks educating a menace to society.
Let’s be honest: many students turn to Passco because the system has left them with few good options. Overcrowded classes, weak teacher support, and one exam deciding their future—that fear pushes them towards shortcuts. If we want change, we must address those root causes too.
Reliance on Passco is not just a sign of laziness; it is a response to a system that often fails them. When students feel they must pass or lose everything, they will choose what feels safest, even if it is shallow.
Guiding Principles for Reform
Before turning to detailed recommendations, four principles should guide national and institutional action: Assess for understanding, not recall alone. Exams must sample broadly and require application to new scenarios.
Balance accountability with learning. High‑stakes decisions should be informed by multiple evidence streams, that is, coursework, practicals, projects, and portfolios, not a single test sitting.
Support, don’t just police. Educators need resources, manageable class sizes, and assessment training to move beyond Passco dependence.
Model integrity system-wide. When leaders value deep learning, communities follow.
Recommendations
Every major exam should include at least 30% new, application‑based items that cannot be answered by memorising past answers. This reduces the return on pure “spotting.”
Teachers and lecturers can use short oral quizzes, group presentations, and “teachthetopic” sessions in class. These are cheap, quick, and harder to bypass with memorised answers.
Each year, schools, colleges, and regulators can publish brief notes explaining how exam items are refreshed and how misuse of Passco undermines fairness. This builds trust in the system. These simple steps can be introduced quickly, even with limited resources, and can create momentum for deeper reform.
The Ministry of Education, Ghana Health Service, Nurse Training Colleges, Ministry of Health, and Regulatory Councils should establish national guidance that aims at fostering learning, improving instructional technics verses overreliance, predicting passco drilling single answers.
Enforce periodic exam item‑refresh cycles using large, secure item banks; rotate formats; and include performance‑based and scenario items. Resource libraries (physical and digital) at basic, secondary, and tertiary levels; negotiate national e‑resource licenses where possible.
Cap class sizes or fund staffing ratios in professional programmers’ to enable formative assessment beyond multiplechoice questions. Audit training institutions for assessment quality and curriculum coverage, not just pass rates.
Examination bodies should increase the proportion of novel, application‑based questions each year. Publish blueprints (competencies and weightings) rather than recycling specific items.
Use anchored but undisclosed item pools and, where feasible, adaptive or multiform testing to reduce recall advantage. Provide sample items that model thinking, then retire them permanently so they cannot be reused as “Passco.”
Institutions should adopt Assessment for Learning strategies: frequent low‑stakes quizzes, open‑book concept tasks, lab practicals, and oral vivas. Require (annotated reading logs or short reflective summaries). Establish Academic Integrity Policies that explicitly discourage Passco drilling as primary preparation. Provide Faculty Development workshops on writing new items and constructing clear rubrics.
Educators should use past questions diagnostically: “What concept does this item test? How else might we ask it?” Vary question formats (short answer, structured response, case vignette, practical demonstration).
Integrate realworld scenarios drawn from Ghanaian contexts, community health outreach, and classroom management. Give surprise formative checks to encourage continuous study rather than lastminute cramming.
Students and parents should treat Passco as a revision supplement, not the syllabus. Build concept notebooks: definitions in their own words, simple diagrams, and worked examples. They should form peer study groups that rotate teaching roles because “If you can teach it, you know it.”
Track skills mastered, not only scores. A simple, low‑effort challenge for students:
Professional sectors should link licensure renewal to continuing professional development (CPD) activities that require demonstration of skill, not just paper certificates. Use simulation labs and supervised practice logs as part of graduation requirements.
Technology and publishing partners should develop interactive question banks that randomise data sets, so items test reasoning, not recall. Embed instant feedback with concept explanations, turn every question into a minilesson.
Five-to-seven-year roadmap
Phase 1 (0–12 months): Lay the foundation. Convene a national stakeholder roundtable (exam bodies, unions, heads of institutions, parents, and students).
Issue clear national guidance on responsible Passco use and warn against harmful overreliance. Begin planning for exam item‑refresh cycles and start building secure item banks.
Phase 2 (12–36 months): Pilot and learn. Pilot revised exam forms in selected districts and selected subjects. Train teachers and lecturers in diversified assessment (oral quizzes, practicals, scenariobased tasks). Expand digital library access and basic techenabled interactive banks where connectivity allows.
Phase 3 (36–84 months): Scale and embed. Scale proven approaches to all regions. Embed multi‑evidence certification (exam + coursework + practicum) in key professional programmes. Monitor outcomes and publish annual briefs on Passco use and exam integrity. Run public awareness campaigns with the tagline “Learn it. Don’t just spot it.”
Reframing success: Knowledge plus character. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us that the goal of true education is intelligence plus character. When we elevate shortcuts over substance, we fail both measures. Benjamin Franklin urged investment in knowledge; he promised that returns would follow. Let us invest in knowledge that serves society, not merely in certificates that decorate walls.
Experience remains one of the greatest teachers. Formal schooling should amplify, not replace, the lessons life gives us. If we align policy, practice, and values, Ghana can lead the continent in re‑centering education on understanding, service, and integrity.
Call to Action
Educators must audit their next exam by considering how much of it could be answered by memorising old items. Revise at least 30 per cent with new, applicationbased questions.
Students, for one week after studying a passco question, should explain the answer to a friend without checking their notes. If they could not do so, that means that they have not really learned it yet.
Parents and communities must ask the schools what the children are learning, beyond passing their exams.
Leaders must invest in resources, libraries, teacher training, and assessment reforms. The cost of inaction is a workforce unprepared for nationbuilding.
Conclusion:
Ghana stands at a defining moment in its educational journey. The continued overreliance on Passco is not just an academic concern; it is a national risk. When a system rewards memorisation over understanding, it produces graduates who may pass exams but struggle to perform, innovate, or lead. No country can build a resilient health system, a credible education sector, or a competitive economy on such a fragile foundation.
The issue before us is not the existence of Passco, but the culture we have allowed to grow around it – a culture that quietly lowers standards while appearing to uphold them. If left unchecked, it would normalise mediocrity, weaken professional competence, and erode trust in qualifications that should command respect.
Reversing this trend demands collective responsibility. Policymakers must reform assessment systems, educators must prioritise depth over coverage, and students must choose understanding over shortcuts. Parents and communities, too, must shift the conversation from “Did you pass?” to “What have you learned?”
The future of Ghana’s workforce, institutions, and public safety depends on the quality of education delivered today. The choice is clear: continue down a path of convenient shortcuts or commit to the harder, more rewarding path of genuine learning.
Passco should remain what it was meant to be – a tool, not a teacher; a guide, not a guarantee. Ghana must reclaim the true purpose of education: to build minds that can think, hands that can work, and characters that can serve.
The writer is the Deputy Director of Nursing Services, Ghana Health Service, Cape Coast.
GNA
Edited by Agnes Boye-Doe