WAEC extends private BECE registration period

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has extended the deadline for registration for the 2016 private Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).The registration for the examination was to end on November 26, 2015 but candidates have now been given up to January 15, 2016 to register.

According to the Head of Public Affairs of WAEC, Mrs Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, the extension of the registration deadline was to give more candidates the opportunity to write the private BECE.

At the close of the November 26 deadline, only 960 candidates had registered for the examination but “WAEC wants to give more students the opportunity to register and write the examination”.

First edition

During the first edition of the private BECE held in February last year, 1,118 candidates registered for the examination.

The private BECE is for both candidates who are rewriting the examination because of poor performance, and those who are desirous of pursuing further education and are, therefore, writing for the first time.

Continuous assessment marks are not applicable in this examination as candidates are marked over 100 per cent.

Under the private BECE policy, candidates can write any number of subjects, between one and nine, including English, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and French.

Re-sit policy

The re-sit policy states, among other requirements, that candidates rewriting the examination must provide the index numbers and the year of writing the previous BECE.

However, in the case of first-time candidates, students must be 16 years and above, and under this category, “students in junior high schools (JHSs) are not qualified to register for the examination.”

“The date of birth of candidates will be printed on their certificates and, therefore, unqualified candidates caught writing the examination will have their registration nullified and barred from taking any WAEC examination for two years,” the policy guidelines for the re-sit has stated.

Each district capital will have one examination centre, provided the candidates in that district are 200 or more. In cases where the candidates are less than 200 in a district, the centre will be moved to the nearest centre/district to make the conduct of the examination a success.