200 BECE candidates who couldn’t write two papers to write in January 2018

About 200 candidates in three communities in the Northern Region who could not write two papers on the first day of this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) are to sit for the exams in January 2018.

This follows a decision of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to allow the affected students another opportunity.

The examination body has made a volte-face with its latest decision as it had earlier indicated through its Director of Public Affairs, Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, that the only option left for the candidates from Gabatia, Gbogbamong and Guagdian in the Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo District was to re-register as private candidates, later this year, to enable them to write the two papers.

Parents and some residents of Gabatia, Gbogbamong and Guagdian last Monday prevented their children from writing the BECE at Gbankoni, another community in the district because there was a conflict between Gabatia and Gbankoni over a parcel of land, with tension still high between the two communities.

The community members claimed they informed the education authorities about the issue and asked them to give them a new centre in their community instead of Gbankoni, however that was not done and so they did not allow their children to go and write the examination at Gbankoni.

The Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Rev. Jonathan Bettey who confirmed WAEC’s latest decision in an interview with Kasapa News, described the decision as welcome news.

He said neither WAEC nor the GES should be blamed for the candidates’ predicament as they were not responsible for that.

“That decision taken is welcome, the fact is that both Ghana Education Service and WAEC should not be blamed for that. If you know the measures that we always put in place to ensure that we allocate a particular place as an exam centre which is all known by candidates and supervisors, for you to hear at the last minute that it should be changed, is not an easy thing. So we must not aportion blame but accept the fact that they’ll be writing next year (2018).”