BECE candidates: Let your hard work shine through
Today, a total of 603,328 candidates will sit the crucial 2025 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) not just to test their knowledge but also their endurance, stress levels and ability to regurgitate information under pressure.
The total number of candidates comprises 297,250 males and 306,078 females, and the examination will take place from today to Wednesday, June 18, 2025. It will be conducted at 2,237 examination centres across the country, while 15 centres in the regional capitals will be used for the BECE for Private Candidates.
The Daily Graphic is happy to note that the timetables had already been distributed to schools while all examination materials had also been dispatched to the various metropolitan and district education offices nationwide, according to the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Professor Ernest Kofi Davis, to ensure a smooth take-off and successful BECE.
To all the candidates, the Daily Graphic is confident in your ability to let your hard work and dedication shine through.
So trust yourselves, focus, follow instructions, and you will be successful.
Examinations provide a standardised way of assessing student learning, ensuring accountability and comparability across different institutions. While examinations serve as a measure of academic achievement, they sometimes prioritise rote memorisation over critical thinking and creativity.
The paper is hopeful that as the years roll by, educators will rethink the role of exams in education and look for ways or systems that nurture curious, creative and confident learners who will be equipped to tackle the complexities of an ever-changing world.
One challenge that has bedevilled examinations in this country is examination malpractice.
Sad to say, every year, there are reports of examination malpractice in the various examinations conducted in the country and the BECE is no exception.
Examination malpractice has severe and far-reaching effects on individuals, institutions and society as a whole. It undermines the credibility of the individual involved and academic institutions.
Individuals who engage in the malpractice may experience guilt, shame or lose confidence and may not be adequately prepared for future academic or professional challenges.
That is why the paper supports the call by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to all stakeholders involved in the BECE to ensure sanity prevails at various centres across the country by adhering ‘’strictly to the rules governing the examination. Any attempt to breach any of these will have dire consequences for the candidates.”
It is important for students and teachers to adhere to the revised rules and regulations, which include “having inscriptions on any part of the body or clothing, posting live questions on the Internet, refusal to grant timely access to the school premises, misconduct of examination officials and multiple registration of candidates in both public and private schools.
We would like to encourage all students that while examinations can be stressful, they provide an opportunity for students to demonstrate their knowledge, build confidence and develop resilience.
So it is important that, beyond the grades, students are encouraged to see examinations as a way to learn, grow and develop essential life skills.
The paper sees the BECE as an important stepping stone in a student’s academic life and there is the need for all stakeholders to collaborate to adequately prepare, support and build systems that embrace examinations as an opportunity for students to learn, grow and build the confidence to be successful in the future rather than just passing and forgetting everything.
The Daily Graphic urges all stakeholders in the education sector to let the evaluations that have been done for past BECEs feed into potential reforms to improve the BECE and shape students’ future career paths.
We wish all BECE candidates the very best.
