Chief examiners have expressed worry over the repeated mistakes made by candidates in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), the Head of the National Office of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Rev. Sam Nii Nmai Ollennu, has revealed.
According to him, despite efforts by the examiners to get candidates to learn to do the right thing by paying heed to the direction and advice contained in the Chief Examiners Report to enable candidates to avoid common mistakes, “the mistakes keep recurring year after year”.
“Although such comments are published in the Chief Examiner’s Report, they are not read by teachers and school authorities,” he told the Junior Graphic.
Rev. Ollennu was reacting to the perception that the private BECE was introduced by the council so as to make more money when candidates rewrite the examination after failing.
He noted that it was the desire of the council that all candidates pass the examination at their first sitting that was why after every examination examiners took pains to identify the common mistakes of candidates and compile them into reports for schools to avoid their repetition.
This has, however, not been the case which has left the examiners unhappy “because they keep going over repeated mistakes”.
Currently, he said, the Chief Examiners Report was in soft copies for easy access by schools instead of the hard copies.
