Watch as 27 juvenile prisoners take part in 2023 BECE under tight security

Some 300 students took part in the 2023 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) at the Bethany Methodist Junior High School, one of the centres for the examination in the nation's capital, Accra.

According to one of the supervisors, who spoke to GhanaWeb’s team during a visit to the centre, 162 of the 300 candidates were male and the remaining 138 were females.

Out of the 162 males, 27 were inmates of the Senior Correctional Centre of the Prison Service, designated for juvenile offenders aged 21 years and below.

GhanaWeb’s team captured the moment the 27 inmates got down from their bus to enter their designated classrooms for the second paper of the day, Ghanaian Language and Culture.

The centre was flooded by prison officers who were deployed to the centre.

Reports indicated that tight bit security was due to attempts by the inmates to escape during the 2022 BECE at the same centre. Some juvenile prisoners attempted to jump the walls at the centre but they were apprehended.

The 27 inmates are part of a total of 57 prisoners writing the 2023 BECE.

Eight of the 57 candidates are from the Kumasi Central Prison, nine from the Nsawam Medium Security Prison, and four from the Sunyani Central Prison.

Over 600,000 candidates are expected to take part in the examination from nearly 19, 000 schools across the country at 2137 centres.

The BECE is expected to last till Friday, August 11, 2023. On Monday, the students wrote two papers; Religious and Moral Education and English Language.

As at the time, GhanaWeb ended its visits to the centres on Tuesday, the students were taking the 2nd paper for the day, Ghanaian Language and Culture, after writing the General Science paper earlier in the Morning.

On Wednesday, the students are expected to take Social Studies and Basic Design and Technology; on Thursday, Mathematics and Information and Communication Technology; and on Friday, French.

Watch scenes from the Bethel Methodist BECE centre Accra from the video below:



BAI/OGB

Ghana’s leading digital news platform, GhanaWeb, in conjunction with the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, is embarking on an aggressive campaign which is geared towards ensuring that parliament passes comprehensive legislation to guide organ harvesting, organ donation, and organ transplantation in the country.

You can also watch the latest episode of Everyday People on GhanaWeb TV below: