Reconsider disqualifying students for Senior High School

Apam, Oct. 5,GNA - Some parents whose children could not qualify for admission to Senior High Schools have appealed to the Ministry of Education Science and Sports to reconsider the decision to disqualify candidates who fall below grade five in any of the core subject in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) from gaining admission to a Senior High School.

The core subjects include English Language, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies.

Apart from the core subjects a candidate must pass two of either agriculture, religious and moral education, pre-technical skills, pre-vocational skills, French or Ghanaian language with grades not exceeding six to qualify for Senior High School.

Mr Derrick Owusu-Ambrose, Senior Pharmacist of the Agona Swedru Government Hospital, on behalf of the aggrieved parents told the GNA that the decision was too harsh taking into consideration unavailability of facilities to promote teaching and learning especially in the rural areas.

Mr Owusu-Ambrose who is a member of Assin South District Assembly appealed to the government to ensure equal facilities in all schools and said "to set the some cut-off point in competitive examinations for candidates from the cities and the remotest areas, is unfair". The Pharmacist described the decision to make re-sitters of BECE to re-write all the papers including those they excelled was gross injustice and asked why they could not be treated as their counterparts who sat for the West African Senior Secondary Examination (WASSE) who were made to write only papers they did not perform well. Again the decision to make BECE re-sitters to pay double the fees for registration was also discriminatory, the spokesman said and added that if these decisions were to stand, many of our children would not get the chance to further their education beyond the basic level. "We appreciate the efforts of the government to improve quality of education but this must not be done at the expense of the disadvantaged in the rural areas," Mr Owusu-Ambrose stated.

He indicated that results of the last BECE in one district in the Central Region showed that out of 2,867 candidates who wrote the examination only 1,565 qualified for admission to the Senior High School and wondered what was going to be the fate of the 1,302 who did not qualify.