The paid WhatsApp revision group

Issues

1. Charging his own students (conflict of interest and coercion). Half the subscribers are in his class. Even with no explicit threat, students will read a paid group run by the person who marks them as a condition of favour. It breaches the school's conditions of service, and the NTC Code's requirements on professional relationships and financial dealings with learners.
2. Exam-focused marketing. Describing the group as covering 'what will come in the exam' implies privileged access to assessment content. Even if he means 'likely topics', the claim damages public confidence and can amount to a promise he cannot lawfully keep.
3. Copyright. Scanning pages of a commercially published revision book and photographing WAEC past questions for distribution to 120 paying subscribers goes beyond teaching use. Under Ghana's copyright law, reproduction for private study or teaching is limited; systematic copying and redistribution for a fee is not covered, and WAEC's material is its own. Permission or licensed material is required.
4. Data protection and child welfare. Publishing named mock scores and class positions to a group that includes people outside the class is a disclosure of personal data without lawful basis or consent, and a form of public shaming with foreseeable effects on a child's wellbeing and safety.
5. Equity. A two-tier class emerges: paying students receive extra notes and past questions; the rest do not. That corrodes the claim that assessment is fair.

Most serious: publishing identifiable scores. The copyright and fee issues can be regularised or refunded, but the harm to a named child - bullying, distress, loss of trust - has already occurred, cannot be undone, and is the point at which a teacher's duty of care towards a learner is breached. It is also the issue least defensible on any 'I was helping them' account, because the stated purpose is motivational while the effect is exposure.

Mr Koomson, immediately

1. Take down the score table and any post naming students, and delete the images from the group's shared media where he can.
2. Apologise privately to the girl and her parent, without arguing about intent, and state what has changed.
3. Stop distributing scanned book pages and WAEC past questions. Replace with his own written questions or material he has permission to use.
4. Stop charging his own students. Offer those affected a free, school-based arrangement or a pro-rata refund, and put the choice in writing so no student feels compelled to continue.
5. Separate any future external tutoring from his school role: different clientele (not his own learners), no use of school marking data, approved in writing by the school, and run outside school hours and premises.
6. Notify the headmistress in writing of the steps taken and the timeline.

The headmistress should

• Require written confirmation of the takedown, the refund or transition arrangement, and the change of materials.
• Refer the matter through the school's disciplinary process, with a focus on remediation rather than only punishment, and record it.
• Check whether other teachers run similar groups and issue a one-page policy: no private fees from own learners, no publication of learner data, no copying of copyrighted material.
• Remind staff of the NTC Code and the data protection law at the next staff development session.
• Consider whether any candidate's assessment record has been compromised - for example, whether subscribers received prior sight of mock questions used for grading - and correct it if so.

Principle: intent ('helping weak students') does not cancel the duty; the remedy must address the harm, not just the appearance.

Redesign goal: the same learners, the same subject support, no private fee, no data exposure, no copyright risk.

1. Convert to a free, school-recognised Economics clinic. One afternoon per week in a school classroom, advertised to all SHS 3 Economics students. The school knows the time, place and content. Attendance recorded like any class, so it is visible and cannot be sold as privileged access.
2. Target by evidence, not by ability to pay. Use the mock and class-test results to invite the 15–20 students with the weakest scores on identified topics; publish the criteria so the invitation is transparent.
3. Create his own question bank. Write original practice questions modelled on the syllabus indicators, with mark schemes, and share them as paper handouts. Where he wants past questions, use the ones the school already has and is licensed to use, or seek written permission from the publisher or examination body.
4. Peer tutoring. Train six strong students to run paired revision on specific topics (elasticity calculations, inflation causes). This multiplies support at no cost and gives the tutors retrieval practice.
5. Digital channel, if used: a free class broadcast group with no names and no scores, administered by the school, used only for reminders, pasted questions and feedback on common errors; individual feedback sent privately.
6. Measure it. Track the invited group's scores on the next class test against their previous scores. If the clinic works, present the data to the school as a proposal to formalise it in the timetable, possibly with a small budget for printing.
7. Declare the boundary. If he still wishes to tutor for a fee outside school, he should not teach his own learners, should not use school records, and should obtain written approval under the school's policy.