The Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) will be administered by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) on Monday, July 8, today.
The GH¢55.9 million that WAEC needs to conduct the exams has been released by the government.
A total of 570,461 applicants from private and elementary schools will take the test.
There will be 569,095 students who are school candidates—282,648 men and 386,447 females—taking the test.
Regarding the BECE for private candidates, 1,366 candidates enrolled for the test, with 735 of them being men and 631 being women.
At a press conference in Accra yesterday, WAEC’s Head of Public Affairs, John K. Kapi, said that the applicants came from 19,506 schools and would take the test at 2,123 locations around the nation.
He said that the exam would start on Monday, July 8 with English language and end on Monday, July 15 with Arabic language.
In order to guarantee a flawless administration of the test, Mr. Kapi continued, 2,123 supervisors, 1,889 assistant supervisors, and 19,973 invigilators had been hired.
Private applicants will be evaluated using the previous syllabus, while school candidates will be evaluated using the recently implemented Common Core Curriculum,” he continued.
Speaking about the arrangements the council had made to ensure the exam went well, Mr. Kapi mentioned that all candidates and other interested parties nationwide had been given access to a programme designed to raise awareness of the norms and regulations.
He reiterated that WAEC has verified that all depots used to store sensitive materials complied with security regulations by inspecting them.
“We have also done distribution of examination stationery items such as objective answer cards, answer booklets, and pencils to the district education offices throughout the country,” claimed the Head of Public Affairs at WAEC.
Additionally, Mr. Kapi stated that changes had been made to make the test easier for applicants with special education requirements to take.
He mentioned, for example, that large print papers had been created for candidates with low eyesight, and braille papers had been made for candidates who were visually challenged.
Once more, accommodations had been made for applicants with hearing impairments, cerebral palsy, and autism spectrum disorders to have an extra 1.5 times the time granted to normal candidates.
Mr. Kapi sent a warning to all parties involved in the exam, including parents, teachers, students, invigilators, and supervisors, advising them to carefully follow the guidelines.
He emphasised that while parents must make sure their kids don’t bring cell phones to exams, invigilators, teachers, and supervisors also needed to make sure they didn’t allow any space for dishonesty or other wrongdoing.
“Proprietors of schools, parents, head teachers, teachers and all other persons not involved in the conduct of the examination are not allowed at the centres,” he stated.
According to Mr Kapi, the WAEC had taken note of several instances in which candidates had written phone numbers, the words “help me” or “just call my mum” in their answer booklets, or had included different amounts of money in their answer booklets as a way of asking examiners for assistance. These instances raised concerns, he added.
“We wish to state clearly that this is classified as seeking external assistance and is a punishable offence,” he said.
He said that the examination will be observed by personnel from the WAEC, the Ghana Education Service (GES), the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the Ghana Police Service, National Security, the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB), and outside monitoring agents that the council had hired.
He emphasised, “We urge supervisors to request these cards if they are suspicious of any persons purporting to be monitors. These personnel would carry identification cards on them.”
Mr. Kapi stated that WAEC would make every effort to punish those who engage in irregularities with the examination, all the while seeking the cooperation of all parties involved to protect the integrity of the test.
He cautioned the candidates against falling for the tricks of unscrupulous website owners, whose main goal is to spread bogus questions and trick people into subscribing to them.