Malcom S. Forbes has argued that “diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.” Come next week, the first batch of pupils who failed in their first attempts at the Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) will have the opportunity to formally attempt to scale through as they try again to rewrite the examinations.
For well over a decade, I have led a crusade to let the Ghana Education Service and Ministry of Education appreciate the fact that the policy which limited the children to only one chance at passing the examinations was unproductive and dysfunctional to the future of our country. My argument has been that if at the tertiary level individuals are given the chance to sit for an examination for as many as four times before they could be withdrawn, and at the secondary level, one could sit for the examination as many times as one could afford, then it did not make sense or serve any justice and purpose when at the basic level, pupils were limited to only one attempt to pass the examination against the large number of subjects which have to be taken at that level.
Advocacy
The advocacy appeared as fruitless as that of the engineer crusading about local substitutes for biofuel production. However, there were admirers behind the scene as my efforts were recognised and appreciated by the Salt and Light Ministry. That singular honour bolstered and emboldened me in the fight and gave me the ammunition to press on. Therefore, when the Ministry of Education announced last year that approval had been given to allow re-sits under the BECE, as happens with the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination/ West Africa Senior Secondary School Certificate Examinations, I knew my toils had not been in vain.
I kept on struggling not because I will ever sit for the examination. Thankfully, none of my children who has sat for the examination has failed. However, I felt that we needed to pursue a functional policy that would not terminate the education of our children in their teens, especially in the face of the constitutional provisions enjoining us to progressively make secondary education free. Indeed, my thinking is that in our day and time, secondary schools and their different manifestations should be considered as part of basic education and made free under the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) guaranteed by the 1992 Constitution.
Cheating by parents
Many parents, in the absence of a formal policy to allow their children re-sit the BECE, resorted to dubious means of cheating the system. Some did so by registering their children to sit for the examinations in the second year so that they would have an experience before they reached the final year. But there was a price since the results could be nullified once it was established that the pupil had not taken the prescribed time frame to qualify for the examination. Others arranged with headmasters to enrol their children in the second year to give them additional years to take the examinations.
Commendation
As the great Africanist, the Madiba has noted, “It always seems impossible until it is done.” That is why we have to commend the Ministry of Education for giving in to better reason, no matter the good reason which initially informed them to not permit re-sits at the BECE. The good thing is that it can be done and must be done since doing so is godly, which falls in line with the saying credited with Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah that “nothing in this world can be done unless it is supported by God.”
Joy of waiting
As many great statesmen have counselled, patience and the willingness to wait on God are critical factors to success. That is what Jean-Jacques Rousseau submits when he postulates that “patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet” and this is resonated by Elbert Hubbard that “a little more persistence, a little more effort and what seemed a hopeless failure may turn to a glorious success.”
The joy in seeing the reality of BECE re-sit is summed up by William James that “the greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.” But even before I live my life in full, there is pride for me in John Bunyan, who maintains that “you have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”
When the pupils enter the examination rooms next Monday, they will be pre-occupied with passing, but not focussed on who made it possible for them to have a second chance. That is the essence of life, that we too have contributed to the history of our country.
