Maiden BECE private re-sit begins Feb 16
The maiden Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) re-sit for private candidates has been launched in Accra with Mathematics and English Language recording the highest number of candidates that will be re-writing the examination.
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Out of the total of 1,181 candidates who registered for the examination, 1,136 would be writing Mathematics, with 1,057 candidates writing English Language.
The examination would be written from February 16 to 20, 2015. One hearing impaired and three visually-impaired candidates would also be writing these papers.
The Western Region recorded the highest number of 276 candidates while the Upper East Region had the lowest of 28 candidates. The Bia District in the Western Region was the only district that recorded more than 200 candidates.
Low entries
At the launching ceremony last Wednesday, the Head of National Office of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Very Rev. S. Nii Nmai Ollennu, said due to the low entries, arrangements had been made for all candidates, except those from the Bia District, to take the examination at venues created in the regional capitals.
“Twenty-one subjects were made available for the examination. Candidates had the option of choosing any subjects from one to nine,” he said.
According to him, 75 examiners were expected to mark the examination scripts from March 25 to April 20, 2015, and that the results would be released in May 2015.
Since the inception of the BECE in 1990, candidates who needed to re-sit the examination, had had to go to their former schools to take the examination. This was a disincentive to such candidates as they found it difficult to sit in the same classrooms with their juniors to prepare and re-write the examination.
Candidates
The Minister of Education, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, however, noted that the number of candidates who had registered for the examination was not an issue.
“Even if it is one person, that person is important,” she said, and added that the ministry was happy about the novelty to give BECE graduates and first time candidates the opportunity to write the examination as private candidates.
Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said the vision of the ministry was that, Junior HIgh School (JHS) students would pass at the first sitting and not re-write, and that the ministry was undertaking various initiatives to realise that objective.
She cited the recent retraining of more than 500 Mathematics teachers by the ministry, as part of the initiative.