The Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for students in junior high school in Ghana has not been cancelled, according to the Ghana Education Service (GES).
According to GES, the BECE’s nature and format will likely change as a result of the transition from the previous objectives-based curriculum to a standards-based curriculum.
Reports of the alleged cancellation of the BECE are untrue, according to the director general of GES, Dr. Eric Nkansah, who was speaking at a stakeholder engagement on the grading system by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).
He said “We are not cancelling the BECE. What is confusing people or some of our people is that we are now moving away from the old objectives-based curriculum to the standards-based curriculum, and it does not mean that those on the standards-based curriculum will not write BECE. They will also write but perhaps the nature and form may change. So please don’t communicate that we are not writing BECE.”
Prior to that, Dr. Prince Hamid Armah, executive secretary of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA), demanded that the BECE system be abolished.
The BECE, according to him, should be replaced by a different exam because it falls short of the requirements set by the nation’s educational system.
Dr. Armah claimed that there is sufficient evidence to support the need for the introduction of a new method of evaluating the quality of instruction in an interview with Accra-based Starr FM.
Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, the information minister, also made a suggestion that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) might consider scrapping the BECE in September 2017.
According to him, the government wants to automatically enroll JHS students in the basic education system.
