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On the first day of the 2025 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), a facilitator from a Telegram group was advertising early access to the social studies paper for GHS 150.
A screenshot of the advertised price for question papers
Curious and skeptical, I made the mobile money payment using the provided number.
Minutes later, I received what was labelled “the actual paper.” But when the real exam paper was released and the students began writing, I compared the two. They did not match. The document I paid for was a false lead, one of many in a digital marketplace built on misinformation and academic desperation.
Picture top left: A picture of the supposed questions that I was assured of getting in the actual exams
Picture top right and below: A picture of a page of the actual questions that appeared in the Social studies paper
The Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) is Ghana’s nationwide standardised test taken by final-year junior high school students, typically aged 14 to 16.
It determines placement into senior high school, much like the GCSE in the UK or junior high exams in parts of Asia. Each year, hundreds of thousands of students sit for the BECE under high pressure, making the integrity of the exams a matter of national concern.
The 2025 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) concluded on June 18, 2025. Still, behind the scenes, a parallel and deceptive digital operation, masterminded by four Telegram channels, preyed on the anxiety of students and the trust of desperate parents.
These Telegram channels, some boasting subscriber bases that rival national media platforms, include: BECE/WASSCE 2025 – Over 120,000 subscribers, WASSCE/CTVET 2025 – Over 205,000 subscribers, WASSCE LEAKAGE – Over 5,000 subscribers, and WAEC 2025 – Over 156,000 subscribers.
Using TGStat, DUBAWA analysed the telegram channel growth, content frequency, and engagement metrics.
Surge in views and subscribers suggests coordinated exploitation
Two of the monitored Telegram channels experienced sharp spikes in both viewership and subscriber growth during the 2025 BECE examination week, suggesting a deliberate attempt to exploit heightened exam anxiety. Before the exams on June 11, one channel averaged around 3,000 daily views.
However, between June 11 and June 18, the whole duration of the BECE, the same channel’s average viewership jumped to approximately 5,500 per day. It also gained over 5,000 new subscribers during that month alone.
Another channel recorded nearly 10,000 new subscribers on June 11, the very day the exams began, a surge that points to strategic timing and targeted marketing of supposed “apor” (leaked papers). These numbers indicate that the operators were not only prepared to monetise public panic, but also succeeded in pulling in thousands of desperate students and parents with false promises of early access to exam questions.
Before the start of the BECE on 11th June, this channel averaged 3,000 views.
However, between June 11th and 18th, the duration of the examination, the channel’s average viewership rose significantly to approximately 5,500 views.
The channel also gained over 5,000 new subscribers in June, the same month the BECE commenced.
This channel experienced a significant increase in subscriber numbers on the day the BECE commenced.
Almost 10,000 telegram users subscribed to this channel on June 11, the commencement date for the BECE this year.
Screenshots of the description of one of the channels
They positioned themselves as credible sources for what is locally known as apor, the local term for leaked exam papers, offering exclusive access to supposedly authentic BECE questions for a fee ranging from GHS50 to GHS150.
These channels flooded their pages with messages urging candidates and parents to “secure” the papers ahead of each subject while simultaneously warning that late payments could result in missing out.
A screenshot of one of the channels advertising the availability of a social studies paper.
In one instance, I engaged with a facilitator from one of the groups who was advertising BECE Integrated Science questions for GHS150. After making the mobile money payment, I received a document labelled as the actual paper. But upon comparing it to the official exam paper released later that day, the contents did not match. The questions I paid for were either fabricated or loosely predicted, not leaked in advance as advertised.
Across several days of monitoring, a pattern emerged. These groups would share vague predictions in the days leading up to each paper, sometimes past questions, and at other times slightly altered versions to build hype and establish credibility.
Then, minutes after the actual paper begins, they would upload photos or typed versions of the fundamental questions, often accompanied by “solutions”. At this point, it was too late for any practical use by candidates. The narrative of early access was a complete fabrication.
One channel, rather than serving individuals privately, created a so-called VIP group, where members who had paid were added en masse to receive the “leaked” papers. This shift from one-on-one interactions to mass broadcast methods shows the scale and evolving tactics of these operators. It also demonstrates the transactional nature of the scam, prioritizing volume over value.
The entire ecosystem was structured like a digital black market: anonymous Telegram accounts, mobile money payment instructions with rotating numbers, no refund policies, and a deep sense of urgency laced into every message. Yet none of the five channels monitored offered proof of authentic early access to any paper throughout the exam week.
A parent’s regret: “My son has lost trust in me.”
Frank Andoh, not his real name, a parent whose child sat for the 2025 BECE, shared a sobering experience after falling victim to one of the fraudulent Telegram channels.
I reached out to him through one of these VIP groups that he had created.
He paid GHS500 for what was advertised as a complete set of leaked questions for the four core subjects. “I was surprised how I was made to believe they were the expected exam questions,” he said.
None of the questions he received appeared in the actual exam. Worse still, his son had studied those false materials intensely, only to face a different set of papers in the exam room. “He has lost trust in me,” Andoh confessed. “I was on him to study the questions I got from the scammers, but I’m dealing with it.”
A screenshot of my chat with one of the parents in the VIP groups
His experience didn’t end there. He recounted being introduced to someone claiming to be an “external examiner” who allegedly promised to single out his child’s answer booklets to ensure a pass, another layer of the fraudulent network. While Andoh has decided not to pursue legal action, he says he is now determined to warn other parents about these scams. “I want to let it slide, but caution parents to know that this is not real,” he said.
Repeated Warnings, No Arrests
Kofi Asare, Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, an education think tank, who spoke to DUBAWA, says the BECE “leak” ecosystem has essentially evolved into a scam economy.
“BECE, I would say that mostly they are fake. They aim to extort, and that’s it,” he stated, pointing to a similar trend with WASSCE in recent years.
According to him, since 2023, no genuine exam questions have leaked due to the tighter security measures implemented during a former Education Minister’s tenure, including the involvement of the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) to oversee exam paper printing. “Since 2023, 2024, no questions have been leaking, and so if you pay money there, you don’t get it,” he added.
Yet, Asare is critical of Ghana’s Cybercrime Unit and the lack of institutional follow-through on evidence submitted by his organisation.
“Between 2020 and 2023, we submitted several petitions to the Director-General of CID with hardcore evidence… numbers, chats, and confirmed sources. But we never received feedback, and were only vaguely told someone had been arrested in Kasoa,” he lamented.
Many of these fraudsters, he says, change their Telegram usernames and group names annually, pivoting between promising leaked questions and falsely offering services like altering WAEC results.
“It’s high time the Cyber Security Unit confronts these virtual platforms that continue to degrade public trust in our national exams,” Asare urged.
Calls for the creation of an examination fraud unit to tackle online scams
The Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, is also calling for the establishment of a specialised examination fraud unit within the Ghana Police Service to help combat the growing threat of digital exam-related scams.
According to Mr. Asare, despite improvements in exam security that have significantly reduced question leakages since 2023, online fraud targeting candidates remains a persistent issue. These scams often involve false promises of leaked questions, fake results upgrades, and collusion in exam rooms.
“WAEC’s major challenge is inertia, the very slow response of law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting online scammers,” he said. “Even though exam leaks have reduced, these groups are still scamming people under different pretences.”
He further criticised the lack of accountability and follow-through by security agencies, despite the widespread registration of SIM cards in the country.
“If it is not possible to track people perpetrating fraud that undermines the credibility of the country’s education system, and the police just watch on, then we have a serious problem,” he said.
He believes that a dedicated police unit focused solely on examination fraud would significantly improve investigation, enforcement, and prosecution. “It’s high time we had a unit at the police headquarters specifically for examination fraud. That would support the work of WAEC, the GES, and the Ministry of Education in sanitising the external assessment space,” he added.
