This year’s BECE for school results could be ‘worst’ ever – Politician
A member of the United Peoples Party, Kenneth Kwame Asamoah in 2020 during the outbreak of coronavirus which halted academic activities predicted that BECE for School results could be the worst in the country’s history
Ahead of the conduct of the 2020 Basic Education Certificate Examination, the politician said the psychological effect of the locally transmitted coronavirus and temporal school break would affect students’ academic performance and grades.
In an interview with Atinka TV monitored by Pretertiary, the UPP Chairman called on the Ministry of Education (MoE) to put in place adequate measures to prevent any academic disaster as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic.
“It is wrong considering the situation where many students are contracting the disease. Out of fears of contracting the virus, the student may not focus on their exams which could obviously lead to mass failure,” the politician explained.
A total of 531,707 final-year Junior High School (JHS) students made up of 269,408 males and 262,299 females sat for the 2020 edition of the national examination. The figure was 2.78% higher than the 2019 candidature of 517,332.
The candidates were from a total of 17,436 private and public Junior High Schools across the country. The examination was administered at 2,012 centres. Out of the total number of candidates who initially registered, 1.59% were absent.
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) December 16, 2020 released the provisional results of students who sat for the national examination
In a blog post on its official website, WAEC said “We wish to inform its publics that it has released provisional results of candidates who sat for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for School candidates, 2020
The Council will despatch the results to the schools through ‘the Metropolitan/Municipal/District Directors of Education. Meanwhile, the Council has hosted the results online and candidates who so desire may access their results at the Council’s website.”
Following the conclusion of investigations into cases of examination malpractice detected during the conduct of the examination, The Final Awards and Examiners’ Appointment Committee for the BECE approved:
(1) Cancellation of the subject results of 417 candidates for bringing foreign material into the examination hall and engaging in collusion.
(2) Cancellation of the entire results of 44 candidates for bringing mobile phones into the examination hall.
(3) Withholding of the subject results of 977 candidates pending the conclusion of investigations into various cases of alleged examination malpractice.
The management of the not for-profit-making organization (WAEC) indicated that the withheld BECE for School results of candidates may be cancelled or released based on the outcome of investigations.