Border closure affects eight foreign BECE candidates

Some eight foreign candidates expected to sit for the 2020 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) at a centre in the Ketu South Municipality are stranded in their home country.

A total of 119 pupils from other West African countries registered with the West African Examination Council (WAEC) to write this year’s BECE in Ghana.

But Ghana News Agency checks revealed that the candidates, two boys and six girls, could not turn up at Saint Paul’s ‘C’, the centre dedicated to foreign candidates on the first and second days of the ongoing BECE.

Charles Elikplim Dorkenoo, the Municipal Public Relations Officer Ketu South Education Office, said the candidates travelled to Nigeria and were caught up by the border closure directive due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ghana closed her air, land and sea borders to human traffic from March this year to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Though the air borders were opened on September 1, the land and sea remain closed.

Meanwhile, 56 candidates were absent on the first day of the examination while 55 did not also write the papers on the second day in the Municipality.

They include 17 boys and 39 girls on the first day and 17 boys and 38 girls on the second day.

The Municipal Education Directorate cited the death of three candidates, illness, pregnancy and the border closure as the reasons for the failure of the candidates to participate in the examination.

The Ketu South Municipality presented 4,225 candidates from both public and private basic schools and other West African countries for this year’s BECE.