A total of 517,332 candidates from16, 871 public and private basic schools nationwide, yesterday began the 2019 Basic Education Certificate Education Certificates Examination (BECE).
The candidates, made up of 263,616 males and 253,716 females, are 7,508 more than the 2018 figure of 509,824 candidates. They are writing the exams at 1,880 examination centres and are being supervised and invigilated by a total of 21,726 personnel.
According to the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC), the week-long examination which was slated for Monday, June 3 to June 7 was rescheduled by the Ghana Education Service (GES) to yesterday for unexplained reasons. From all accounts, the examination has taken off smoothly across the country and we hope that it would continue till the end.
We are confident that the candidates, with the support of the teachers, have prepared adequately for the examination.
Indeed reports reaching the Ghanaian Times indicates that a lot of efforts have been put into preparing the candidates by teachers and headmasters with support from the GES.
We are hopeful that the efforts put in by all the stakeholders would enable the candidates make everyone proud.
We know that examinations of this nature have in the past recorded malpractices but thankfully, that has reduced in the past few years.
The GES and the WAEC have announced measures to deal with examination malpractices and we believe that candidates would abide by the rules and not cheat in the examination.
We wish to add our voice to the call on candidates to ignore unscrupulous people who walk the length and breadth of the country selling leaked examination papers and rather concentrate on passing the examination through their own efforts.
We urge all the candidates to remember that indulging in examination malpractices is a criminal offence that can send them to jail.
It is, therefore, important for all the candidates to appreciate the fact that the only way to success is hard work and honesty. Any other way would only land them in trouble.
We urge the security agencies to help deal with all those who would attempt to undermine the integrity of the exercise and jeopardise the future of the candidates.
It is our hope that the examination would be incident-free and end successfully.
We wish all the candidates the best of luck.