The total number of 30,468 candidates from 657 public and private basic schools are sitting for this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) starting today Monday 15th November, 2021, in the northern region.
The number consists of 16,517 male and 13, 951 female students seeking to the pass the exam in order to qualify for second cycle education.
The Tamale Metro has the highest number of about 6,018 candidates from 126 schools writing the examination. However, the number consists of more female students than male in the metropolis.
The Sagnarigu municipal follows closely with 5,839 candidates from 114 schools also having more female population sitting for the exam than their male counterparts.
Meanwhile, the Nanton district has the lowest reprsentation in the region with just 532 children across 10 schools participating in the exam.
Addressing Journalists after visiting some of the examination centres, Mayor of Tamale, Sule Salifu, commended the teachers and school authorities for adequately preparing the students for this major tests.
He asserted that the candidates were in good spirit and confident of writing the exams successfully to qualify for the next phase of their educational ladder and further praised the Ghana Education Service on behalf of President Akufo-Addo for putting the necessary structures in place for the conduct of the exams.
“…The Tamale Metropolitan Assembly on behalf of His Excellency the President, the Chiefs and people of the metropolitan area; we want to say a big thank you to the GES Director and his staff and the various teachers at these centres. The supervisors are also doing their job well and the students obeying instructions “he indicated.
However, the Mayor observed in some of the classrooms the lighting systems were not the best, making visibility a bit challenging but was quick to add that, the GES Director intervened to ensure the problem was fixed.
The Tamale Chief Executive seized the opportunity to urge parents and guardians to take keen interest in the education of their wards particularly when they register to participate in such examination.
“…Again, we witnessed that some few people among the students were absent and what I want to say is that, parents should take keen interest in their children’s future and their future begins from today – if your child has registered to sit for this exam, you need to ensure he/she gets to centre in time and to participate in the exam”
“It is not enough to sit down and say that your daughter or boy has gone to write exams when you don’t know for a fact that, he/she has actually gone to the place. So parents should take that responsibility to even accompany the children to these centres to actually ensure they participate in the exams because that is the best investment parents can give to their children” the Mayor emphasized.
For his part, the Metro Director of Education, Amatus D Tug-uu, revealed about nine students were absent for the first day of the examination.
But when asked the reasons for those students not reporting for the paper, he noted the reasons were readily known to him but explained that, “For now, no, it is only one of the centers – I think St Charles centre that we went and they said the student didn’t report, once he didn’t report; its left with us to go to the school to find out and if it is necessary for us to trace to the parents to find out why their children were not at the centers to write, we will do so”.
Meanwhile, the West Africa Education Council (WAEC) has assured that the 2021 BECE will be leak-free compared rumors regarding such practices in the past.
A total number of 571, 894 candidates are sitting for the weeklong exam which will end on Friday, November 19, 2021, at 2,158 centres nationwide.
