Two institutions describe WASSCE, BECE as successful
The Ghana Education Service (GES) and the West Africa Examinations Council (WAEC) have described this year’s West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) as successful despite the change of month for the BECE and the large number of candidates that sat for the WASSCE.
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According to the two institutions, advanced preparations had led to the successful organisation of the examinations.
There were apprehensions over the smooth conduct of the WASSCE before it commenced on April 9 because of the large number of students involved. A total of 409,753 candidates from 724 public and private senior high schools (SHS) from the two groups of final-year students wrote the examination across the country.
They comprised 220,866 males and 188,881 females.
For the BECE, a total of 391,079 candidates wrote the examination.
The candidates from the 11,778 public and private basic schools were made up of 209,381 males and 181,698 females. They wrote the examination at 1,378 centres.
The number of candidates for this year showed an increase of 14,215 over last year’s (2012) total of 376,859.
The month for writing the BECE was changed from April to June to enable final-year junior high school (JHS) students to complete the basic school syllabus before they wrote the examination.
The change was in response to complaints by parents, students and the public that JHS students very often did not complete the full three terms during their final year before they sat for the BECE.
The change in the month for writing the BECE was expected to also address the problem of the payment of third term school fees since candidates previously completed school in the second term but were billed for the last term of the academic year.
Ghana Education Service
A Deputy Director of the GES, Mr Charles Aheto-Tsegah, and the Head of Test Administration of WAEC, Mr Felix Akuffo-Badoo, told the Daily Graphic in separate interviews that the organisation of the examinations was in order.
“This year’s BECE and the WASSCE have been so well-organised. I must concede that there were a number of problems but they were not as widespread as we have had them in the past,” Mr Aheto-Tsegah said.
According to him, there appeared to be a certain degree of comportment on the part of the candidates and the invigilators, adding that “there was a serious sense of commitment to the examinations.”
Mr Aheto-Tsegah congratulated all those who, in various ways, had contributed to the organisation of the examinations.
“We were able to conduct a huge examination for two cohorts of students at the same time without any significant challenges and we did that also for the BECE, also without problems within the context of having to change our school term to make up for the arrangements.”
Change of BECE date
On the change of date for the BECE, Mr Aheto-Tsegah said there had always been challenges concerning the period for the examination, adding that June was considered a good alternative since it gave the students enough time to prepare for the examination.
“We would look at what would come out from this examination and would take a decision as to where we would be. Because it’s a national examination, we can always discuss with WAEC and fix our time,” he said.
Mr Akuffo-Badoo said, “to the best of our ability, everything went well as far as the organisation of the WASSCE and the BECE was concerned.”
According to him, enough preparation was put in place to ensure the smooth conduct of both examinations.
“We prompted the heads of schools about a year ago. We told them all the things they had to do,” he said, and “we think generally everything was smooth.”
Release of results
The BECE results, he said, would come out somewhere in September while the WASSCE would be out in August.
By Emmanuel Bonney/Daily Graphic/Ghana