BECE cancellation was a collective decision – Minister of Education

Prof. Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang, the Minister of Education; has disclosed that the decision to cancel some papers in the ongoing Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) was a collective one between the Ministry and the West Africa Examinations Council (WAEC).

She admits that the recurrent nature of the leakages over the years makes it very worrying and their decision was more in the interest of the children, who are the future, and also to protect the institutional integrity of WAEC as body corporate.

The Minister further expressed unhappiness at the decision, especially because at the level of BECE; "it is about children, it is about our youngest candidates, who would be taking their very first external exams," she added.

She goes on to talk about WAEC's reputable status as an examining body across the sub-region and there was the need to do whatever it took to preserve that record that it had strived hard to build over the years.

The professor was speaking on Accra-based Radio Gold's morning program; she also revealed that their monitoring of the leakages started since Sunday night till Wednesday, according to her, some of the leaked questions were true and others were not, but they agreed that the pervasive nature of the leakage merited the unfortunate decision to cancel.

She is upbeat that all persons found culpable after investigations into the leakage are concluded would be followed through to the latter.

Her deputy in charge of pre-tertiary education, Mr. Alex Kyeremeh; had yesterday indicated that the National Security had been invited to assist in investigations into the leakage. The state-owned Daily Graphic, however, reports that the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI) has commenced investigations.

The cancellation was announced via a press statement from WAEC. In all, in excess of 438,000 children will be affected by the cancellation which has been rescheduled to 29 – 30 June 2015.