Monday, May 31, 2010

Make BECE incident-free

Story: Hadiza Nuhhu-Billa Quansah

The Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, has urged candidates writing the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) to make this year’s examination incident-free, since they have just a few subjects to write.

“You all had enough time to prepare for this annual examination and, therefore, there is no point carrying foreign materials into the examination halls, copying from friends or teaching others, which are all grievous offences,” he told the candidates.

The minister was addressing BECE candidates in the Ga East and the Adentan municipality on Monday when the BECE commenced throughout the country. 

This year, BECE candidates are writing papers in English Language, Social Studies, Integrated Science, Mathematics, Basic Design and Technology, Ghanaian Language and French. Meanwhile, French and Ghanaian Language have been made optional.

He also requested that pregnant candidates and those who owed school fees should not be sent out of the examination halls, since they all had the  right to sit for the examination so far  as they were duly registered.

Mr Tettey-Enyo visited the Achimota School Centre, which has 1,158 candidates at three centres; the PRESEC Staff School Centre, which has 919 candidates, and the West Africa Senior High School (WASS) Centre, which has 385 candidates.

By 9:45 a.m. on Monday, candidates at the PRSEC Staff School had already had their first feel of how external examinations are conducted  with the writing of the English Language Paper One.

Some of the anxious candidates got to their various centres as early as 5:30 a.m. to revise their notes for the last time.

At almost all the centres visited, there were absentees and some visibly pregnant girls.

At the Adentan Community School Centre where  617 candidates were supposed to write the exams, two of them were absent.

The Adentan Municipal Chief Executive, Mrs Nubyl Kakra Van Lare, who visited the centre, encouraged the candidates to relax and put in their best, reports Severious Kale Dery.

She cautioned them against examination malpractice, assuring them that the examination was within their capability.

The Adentan Municipal Director of Education, Mrs Rosemund Ajoa Keteku, explained that one of the invigilators had mistakenly taken 40 extra questions, a development which created initial panic but the abnormally was rectified.

One of the supervisors of the centre, Mrs Bernice Ofori, said the examination had taken off smoothly, “the only hitch being the artificial shortage which has been corrected. One other problem is that one of the candidates fell sick and vomited but she insists that she can continue with the exams”.

In all, 350,888 candidates from 10,016 schools are writing the week-long examination at 1,278 centres throughout the country.


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