Registration of private candidates for BECE begins

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has opened registration for the 2021 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for private junior high school candidates.

According to WAEC, first-time candidates as well as those seeking to improve on their grades had up to March 19, 2021, to register for the examination which would be written in April this year.

“We have opened registration for all interested candidates who want to write the BECE. They have up to March 19, 2021, to do the registration,” the Head of Public Affairs of WAEC, Mrs Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, told the Daily Graphic in Accra on Friday.

However, since the examination is private, the candidates would have to bear the cost of registration, she said.

Mrs Teye-Cudjoe advised students to take advantage of the window of opportunity offered them to further their education.

“The registration of the private candidates is an opportunity for students to improve their grades and continue with their education. I would, especially, encourage first-timers; those who have never written the BECE before, to take advantage of this as well,” she said.

Prospective candidates

The prospective candidates include the 39,163 students who could not qualify for placement into senior high schools and technical institutes this academic year due to poor performance.

The unqualified candidates were those who had grade nine in English and Mathematics while the private candidates include first-timers who for various reasons were unable to write the examination.

Mrs Teye-Cudjoe also explained that candidates could register any number of subjects they wanted, saying “you have to go online to our website and go through the registration process”.

The private BECE began in 2015 to give candidates who did not perform well in the examination that year the opportunity to improve on their grades to continue with their education.

It received patronage in the maiden examination in 2015 where a total of 1,181 candidates registered.

This increased to 1,418 in 2016, and 1,379 in 2017.

In 2018, it improved to 11,886; it was 2,505 in 2019, while in 2020 it further increased to 2,240 candidates out of which 2,110 actually took the examination that year.

Placement

On Sunday, February 28, 2021, the Ghana Education Service (GES) released the placement of BECE candidates into SHS, technical and vocational schools.

Out of the total number of 533,693 registered candidates, 494,530 qualified for placement.

In all, 343,264 candidates were automatically placed in one of the schools of their choice, while 151,266 qualified candidates could not be matched with any of their choices.