2019 Private BECE underway
This year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for Private Candidates is underway at 11 centres across the country, with candidates writing Mathematics, Ghanaian Language and Culture today.
The fifth edition of the examination began on Monday, February 11 with candidates writing English Language and Religious and Moral Education.
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The candidates wrote Integrated Science and Basic Design and Technology (BDT) yesterday and will write Social Studies and French tomorrow.
The examination will end with Information and Communication Technology on Friday.
The Head of the National Office of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Mrs Wendy Enyonam Addy-Lamptey, who observed the first day of the examination at the WAEC Heights Building in Accra, noted that the Private BECE had been smooth so far.
“The candidates were here on time and everything is okay. They are all comporting themselves very well,” she said.
According to her, the examination was to give the candidates the chance to improve on their BECE results as well as to enable young persons who had not sat for the exam before but desired to do so to write the exam and go back to school.
Master Daniel Appah, a candidate, said he was rewriting the examination because he did not perform well when he sat for the BECE in 2007.
“Allowing us to resit this examination is good because it will enable me for instance, go back to school and enjoy the free senior high school policy.
I believe I will do well this time because I attended classes to be able to resist the examination.
I have been selling mobile phone credits and doing other menial jobs but I think it’s time to go back to school to do something better than I am doing now,” he said.
A total of 2,505 candidates, made up of 1,553 males and 952 females, registered to write the 2019 examination.
The number is far lower than the 11,815 candidates who wrote the exam last year.
The Private BECE began in 2015 to among others, give candidates who did not perform well in the school edition of the exam the opportunity to improve on their grades to be able to continue their education.
In 2015, 1,181 candidates sat the maiden examination while 1,418 candidates wrote in 2016, with 1,379 writing in 2017.