There’s no new grading system to replace Stanine for BECE – WAEC
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has denied claims of introducing a new grading system to replace the current Stanine grading system used for Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
According to the Head of Public Relations at WAEC, John Kapi, the Stanine grading system has been utilised since the inception of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in 1990.
The spokesperson said amid the Stanine grading system, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) does not release data regarding student pass rates or failures in the national examination (BECE).
“The Stanine grading system is what has been in use since the first Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) was written in 1990
WAEC has not issued any statistics indicating the pass or failure rate among students,” the Head of Public Relations of WAEC, John Kapi, told the Daily Graphic in an interview in Accra.
The Public Relations Officer of the not-for-profit-making organization (WAEC) explained that the Stanine grading system does not allow for comparison of students’ performance across different years.
The WAEC official further explained that Ghana uses the norm reference or the Stanine grading system in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), which categorises the people as one cohort.
The grades are from one to nine, and it is mainly used for computer second-cycle school selection and placement of final-year Junior High School (JHS) students who write the national examination.
It is used to differentiate high and low achievers, where one is categorised as highest, two as higher, three as high, four as high average, five as average, six to seven are low average, eight as lower, and nine as lowest.
The stanine grading system used in grading Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates is norm-referenced, suitable for both selection and certification.
A Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidate’s grade is determined not only by his/her achievements and efforts but also by the achievements and efforts of his/her cohorts.
This means that the aggregate scores of candidates are not comparable between years, and thus, evaluating educational standards over time is impossible.
The Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) uses the Stanine (standard nine) grading system, a norm‑referenced approach that fixes the share of students in each grade rather than using absolute score thresholds.
Under Stanine, only a predetermined percentage of candidates can get each grade – roughly 4% earn Grade 1 (the top Stanine), 7% Grade 2, 12% Grade 3, and so on (with the bottom 4% getting Grade 9).
In practice, this means grades are distributed on a bell curve: no matter how well students perform, the proportions remain roughly the same. According to WAEC, the Stanine brings equity and controls grade inflation
WAEC explains that the distribution pattern of grades is determined in advance and does not vary based on the overall performance, but critics say the fixed‑quota model is “obviously inequitable” because it can penalise strong candidates in tough years.
