Basic School Certificate Examination underway

This year's Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) began on Monday throughout the country under tight security.

In all 268,284 candidates, including 121,322 girls, are expected to write eight to nine subjects.

Candidates from 7,105 schools would write the examination at 998 centres.

The Upper East and Upper West regions have 7,577 and 5,064 candidates, respectively, while the Northern Region has 13,403 candidates.

The Greater Accra has 53,183 candidates, Eastern Region has 33,055, Central Region has 27,582 and Western Region, 26,063.

The rest are Ashanti, 54,537; Brong Ahafo registered 23,727 and Volta, 24,093 candidates.

Last year 267,956 candidates took the examination and not withstanding the tight security, WAEC cancelled results of some of the subjects after the question papers had leaked.

"We have put in place a lot of security measures to ensure that the unfortunate incident with the 2002 BECE does not recur," the Reverend John A. Adotey, Acting Head of National Office, WAEC, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA).

He warned candidates and the public to be wary of individuals, who might claim to have examination question papers in their possession and urged the public to report such persons to the Council immediately.

Rev. Adotey hinted that candidates found to be cheating would be penalized stressing that they would either have their entire results cancelled or their subjects results cancelled and be barred for three years from writing the Council's examinations."

He urged supervisors to be vigilant to curb irregularities that occur during examinations.