Making my day
At the graduation ceremony of the African University College of Communications in Accra last Saturday, the Deputy Minister in charge of Tertiary Education, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, gave me something to be hopeful about when he said as from next year students who sit the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), but fail, will have the opportunity to try their luck again through the formal means of resit.
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It was no political talk as the West African Examination Council (WAEC) has confirmed that the BECE resit will be launched in September 2014 and the exams held in February 2015.
Giving the BECE candidates an opportunity to resit the examination as many times as they want before they secure the grades that will enable them to pursue higher education has been an issue that I have canvassed for many years. I am delighted that the Salt and Light Ministry recently commended and recognised me for that course of advocacy.
That is why the decision to allow the BECE resit, announced by Mr Ablakwa and confirmed by the WAEC, is the good news that has made my day. I am taking part of the credit even if the government and WAEC came to an independent decision irrespective of my contributions.
For as Dr Martin Luther King has noted, everybody likes it, as a matter of fact. And somehow this warm glow we feel when we are praised, or when our name is in print, is something like Vitamin A to our ego. Nobody is unhappy when they are praised, even if they know they do not deserve it, and even if they do not believe it.
As it is then, I dedicate the decision as a great tribute to the late Mr Harry Sawyerr, who as Minister of Education ensured that BECE candidates had the opportunity to resit. But it ended after a year because of the arguments raised about continuous assessment.
Thankfully, the WAEC has seen the need to drop that requirement of continuous assessment that was to constitute 30 per cent of the marks.
Indeed, WAEC has not been able to standardise this portion of the marks. No one knows whether there is any auditing to ensure quality control in the award of marks for continuous assessment. There is thus the question of subjectivity by teachers and schools.
The true functionalism of the continuous assessment has thus not been proven beyond all reasonable doubt. It is, therefore, another good news that good reason has, of necessity, given way to better reasons in WAEC agreeing to withdraw the demand for continuous assessment, as prevails for all its examinations conducted for individuals as private candidates as against those conducted on behalf of the Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education.
Those of us who have been crying for BECE resit are conscious of the fact that, sometimes the pupils fail in subjects, such as English Language, Mathematics and Integrated Science or Social Studies, and because of such single subjects, which are core, their academic pursuits are aborted or terminated. In some instances, the prevailing circumstances that caused the failures are not that the pupils are unintelligent but because they could not do their best.
The absence of a formal route for BECE resit has created avenues for fraud and corruptible practices involving parents, some teachers and school authorities, where pupils are registered for the exams in the second year, against WAEC regulations, or where schools that have not been approved by the Ministry of Education get others to register their pupils.
Instead of introducing the pupils to corruption and fraud in their formative years, the policy of formalising the BECE resit must be a very welcome news and relief to pupils and parents.
As I have recounted over the years, in today’s Ghana, the minimum educational qualification any child should have is the Senior Secondary School Certificate. No public institution will employ pupils with BECE certificates.
With the organisation of the February BECE for private candidates, the issue of unscrupulous proprietors of non-recognised basic schools swindling parents and pupils by misappropriating exams fees is likely to reduce, since in extreme cases, the parents could register the pupils directly with the WAEC.
The reality that some students, irrespective of the intelligence quotient, for whatever reasons, may need to resit examinations at all levels, both academic and proficient, points to the need not to shut the door to them after one sitting.
Mr Ablakwa and WAEC, “mo ano hwam”, because you have carried good news.
