Review BECE to reflect new curriculum: Educationists demand - But WAEC defends relevance

Two educationists have called for an immediate review of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) as a mode of assessing candidates in order to reflect the standard-based curriculum.

Sharing their views in separate interviews, a former Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, and the Executive Director of the Institute for Education Studies (IFEST)-Ghana, Dr Peter Anti Partey, said it was not approprioate to use the same scheme for the objective-based assessment to assess the standard-based curriculum and expect to get the results to reflect the standard-based system.

"I believe it is time to say goodbye to the BECE. Once the curriculum has changed, the mode of assessment must also change,” Prof. Opoku-Amankwa said in reference to the relevance of the BECE vis-a-vis the change of curriculum.

The two experts explained that under the BECE, candidates were assessed using the stanine system, which was a norm-referenced system, "meaning grades are assigned based on a fixed distribution of scores, regardless of whether students have met specific learning objectives”.

Prof. Opoku-Amankwa further explained that "while the stanine grading system can be used in educational settings, it's not typically considered suitable for standard-based assessment, especially for certification or selection purposes.

"Standard-based assessment, on the other hand, is criterion-referenced, where performance is evaluated against pre-defined standards or learning goals and targets," he added.

WAEC’s disagreement

However, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) believes that there is the need to take a critical look at what BECE stands for holistically.

The Head of Public Relations of WAEC, John Kapi, explained that aside from it being a way of placing candidates in senior high schools, the BECE was also to assess whatever the candidates had studied or the learning outcomes of the candidates after their basic education.

“So, for me, BECE is still relevant. There may be a few innovations that will have to be introduced and a few corrections that will have to be made in terms of the mode of assessment and then the placement,” he said.

He explained that since last year, the mode of assessing the candidates had been modified with a shift towards critical thinking, analysis and competencies.

“We are now doing a lot more application than recall. So, basically, that is what the standard-based curriculum is supposed to be,” Mr Kapi said.

He explained that the current assessment was a shift from rote-learning to exhibition of competency, which had remained the mode of assessment for a while.

“If these are looked at and we also make it in such a way that the candidates are able to, even in their everyday learning, apply their knowledge, we would be able to arrive at a common form of assessment so that the BECE would be even more relevant than it is as we speak,” Mr Kapi explained.

Diagnostic test

But the former GES Director-General insisted that “the scheme for the standard-based assessment should be different from the scheme for the objective-based assessment”.

Prof. Opoku-Amankwa said candidates were not supposed to choose their preferred programmes under the standard-based system.

“What we should do is not for them to be choosing their subjects as we are getting them to do now, but the resource should be able to let us know their levels, their standards, their attainments, their proficiency in the things that we have set out for them.

“When they go to the schools, that (the assessment process) should guide them. The students will then be allowed to do a diagnostic test, and based on that, they can flow into the various course areas,” Prof. Opoku-Amankwa said.

He clarified that the diagnostic test would be like the standard test, which would give the student and the parents a clue as to the programme the student would be better placed to pursue.

He added that the standard-based assessment focused on measuring student performance against specific learning standards, “whereas the stanine system is a norm-referenced method that ranks students relative to each other within a predetermined distribution”. 

Stanine

He stated that the stanine system did not directly indicate whether students had achieved mastery of particular content or skills.

“It simply places them within a rank order. Standard-based assessment provides more detailed information about what students can do and what they still need to learn.

“Stanine results are based on a fixed distribution. It can be difficult to compare student performance across different years or different cohorts, making it challenging to track progress or evaluate the effectiveness of educational standards over time,” he added.

BECE incompetency

Dr Partey said “the BECE is incompetent in measuring the standards in the standards-based curriculum".

Ghana, he said, until 2019 implemented the objective-based curriculum which focused on clearly stated objectives for each instruction.

"The lessons designed around these objectives and assessments are supposed to be norm-referenced.

“This was well situated for the BECE. With the introduction of the standards-based curriculum and the new Pre-Tertiary Assessment Framework, it was anticipated that the BECE will be modified in its current form and structure, especially because the standard-based curriculum is anchored on a criterion-referenced test and not a norm-referenced test," he said.

Dr Partey said the standards-based curriculum had specific standards — content-wise and general — which each student was supposed to imbibe after going through it.

Because of its nature, he said, it was envisaged that the managers of the curriculum and assessment space would review the BECE to reflect the essence of the new curriculum. 

"Unfortunately, after six years of its implementation, we are stuck to the old model of assessment.

The question is, how are we sure that the competencies in the standard-based curriculum are being met since the BECE in its current form and state cannot help to achieve it? 

“An urgent call for a review of the BECE is imminent, especially at a time when the country is preparing to start a review of the curriculum from kindergarten to Basic Six. We should not continue to introduce new things and yet be stuck in the old ways of doing things," he added.

Dr Partey said a comprehensive reformation of the BECE to reflect the tenets of a criterion-based test was non-negotiable.