Good luck to our BECE candidates

From today until Friday, October 21, 2022, a total of 552,276 candidates from 18,501 schools will converge on 2,023 centres to write this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).

This examination is normally the first external examination by the students and is considered crucial for their advancement on the academic ladder.

Unlike the previous years, when school candidates wrote the examination ahead of private candidates, this year’s BECE will be written simultaneously by both school and private candidates.

Consequently, a total of 1,132 private candidates who would have written their papers later have joined their school counterparts for the five-day examination.
So far, a number of good luck messages from the Ministry of Education, the Ghana Education Service, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Challenging Heights and other quarters have been sent to the candidates.

The Daily Graphic joins those institutions to also wish the candidates the very best of luck as they begin the examination this morning.

It is the wish of all well-meaning Ghanaians that the examination would be written in a congenial environment free of malpractice.

The WAEC, in its goodwill message, assured the candidates that with adequate preparation, adherence to instructions and the observance of examination rules, they could pass the BECE without cheating.

It advised the candidates to be focused and be on the alert for the activities of “examination social media racketeers” whose primary aim was to make money through deception.

It cautioned the candidates against engaging in collusion and other forms of examination malpractice, such as carrying mobile phones and other foreign materials into the examination hall.

It reminded the candidates that collusion could be detected in scripts during marking, and that the penalties included cancellation of subject or entire results.

The Daily Graphic sees the caution by the WAEC as timely and all the candidates must take it seriously, especially the aspect on the activities of “examination social media racketeers” and examination malpractice.

We remind the candidates that examination malpractice can ruin their lives, truncate their future aspirations and bring shame and embarrassment not only to themselves but also their families and the entire society.

For the activities of “examination social media racketeers”, the Daily Graphic wishes to admonish the candidates to stay away from such social media platforms for obvious reasons.

This is because aside from the racketeers’ motive to swindle candidates and their parents of them money, there is the danger that in the event of any of them being busted, anyone whose contact is on their contact list risks being traced and picked up.

We would want to believe that the candidates have prepared adequately for this examination and wish to add our voice to that of WAEC to advise them to adhere to instructions and observe examination rules.

The Daily Graphic is happy that WAEC has urged officials connected with the BECE to comply with the rules and regulations governing the conduct of the examination.

We see the role played by the officials as equally crucial because if those officials display outmost professionalism in their respective roles, examination malpractice will be a thing of the past.

It is a fact that these officials – supervisors, invigilators, school owners, teachers, as well as even the security officers detailed at the various examination centres — are sometimes compromised by becoming facilitators of malpractice.

Let us, together, demonstrate to these children the virtues of honesty, integrity and hard work as being the key to success, and that success does not come on a silver platter, where they will not prepare but rely on ‘apo’ to pass an examination.

When the children are made to cheat at this level, they will move on to cheat in the WASSCE to enter the university, cheat in the university to acquire First Class degrees and come out to cheat to secure jobs, where they then become a dangerous species.

This is because when a student cheats his way to become a medical doctor, engineer, chemist or any other professional, he or she becomes a potential murderer.
Let us, together, inculcate in these young ones time-tested values such as honesty, respect, obedience and integrity as they take over the leadership from us tomorrow.