Mr Bright Appiah, Executive Director of Child Rights International, addressing the media.

188 BECE candidates placed in senior high schools in spite of missing two papers

Salomey Appiah-Adjei Oct - 26 - 2017 , 07:48 2 minutes read

The Ghana Education Service (GES) has placed the candidates from the Bunkpurugu–Yunyoo District in the Northern Region who were unable to write two papers in this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in various senior high schools in the district.

Although the 201 affected students did not rewrite the two papers — English and Religious and Moral Studies — the 188 students, who passed the BECE, have been placed in various senior high schools (SHSs). The remaining 13 were not placed because they failed either mathematics, science or both.

The Executive Director of Child Rights International, a child right advocacy group, Mr Bright Appiah, disclosed this at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday.

Background

The students were unable to write this year’s English and Religious and Moral Studies papers in the BECE on June 5, 2017 due to miscommunication about which examination centre they were to write the exam.

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) subsequently indicated that the students would only be made to re-write the papers in February 2018 together with private BECE candidates.

Following a complaint to Child Rights International by one of the guardians of the candidates, the organisation took the WAEC and Ghana Education Service (GES) to court to enable the children to rewrite the two papers.

According to Mr Appiah, the Organisation argued the case that the students inability to write the papers were no fault of theirs.

After getting the consent of the parents and guardians of the students, Mr Appiah said the organisation decided to represent them in court.

Assurance

Upon meeting the WAEC and GES in court a couple of times, he said, the GES asked the organisation to settle the case out of court with an assurance that the students would be given placement to senior high schools, although they would not be asked to rewrite until February 2018.

“When it was time for placements, we checked on the affected students and those who had passed had been placed in senior high schools,” he stated.