BECE must be reviewed to reflect new curriculum – Former GES DG
Former Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, has called for the review of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) to reflect the standard-based curriculum.
In an interview, Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa said it was not appropriate to use the same scheme for the objective-based assessment to assess the standard-based curriculum and expect to get the results to reflect the standard-based system.
“I believe it is time to say goodbye to the BECE. Once the curriculum has changed, the mode of assessment must also change,” Prof. Opoku-Amankwa said in reference to the relevance of the Basic Education Certificate Examination vis-a-vis the change of curriculum.
Professor Opoku-Amankwa further explained that “while the stanine grading system can be used in educational settings, it’s not typically considered suitable for standard-based assessment, especially for certification or selection purposes.”
“Standard-based assessment, on the other hand, is criterion-referenced, where performance is evaluated against pre-defined standards or learning goals and targets,” the former Director-General of the Education Service said.
But the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) believes that there is a need to take a critical look at what the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for final-year Junior High School students stands for holistically.
The Head of Public Relations of WAEC, John Kapi, explained that aside from it being a way of placing candidates in senior high schools, the BECE was also to assess what the candidates had studied or the learning outcomes of the candidates after their basic education.
“So, for me, BECE is still relevant. There may be a few innovations that will have to be introduced and a few corrections that will have to be made in terms of the mode of assessment and then the placement,” he said.
The not-for-profit-making organization (WAEC) spokesperson explained that since last year, the mode of assessing the candidates had been modified with a shift towards critical thinking, analysis, and competencies.
“We are now doing a lot more application than recall. So, basically, that is what the standard-based curriculum is supposed to be,” the West African Examinations Council official stated.
Mr John K Kapi explained that the current assessment was a shift from rote-learning to exhibition of competency, which had remained the mode of assessment for a while.
“If these are looked at and we also make it in such a way that the candidates are able to, even in their everyday learning, apply their knowledge, we would be able to arrive at a common form of assessment so that the BECE would be even more relevant than it is as we speak,” Mr Kapi explained.
Reacting to the WAEC spokesman’s comment, the former Ghana Education Service Director-General insisted that “the scheme for the standard-based assessment should be different from the scheme for the objective-based assessment.”
Professor Opoku-Amankwa, in an interview with the Daily Graphic, said Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates were not supposed to choose their preferred programmes under the standard-based system.
“What we should do is not for them to be choosing their subjects as we are getting them to do now, but the resource should be able to let us know their levels, their standards, their attainments, and their proficiency in the things that we have set out for them.
When they go to the schools, that (the assessment process) should guide them. The students will then be allowed to do a diagnostic test, and based on that, they can flow into the various course areas,” Prof. Opoku-Amankwa said.
He added that the standard-based assessment focused on measuring student performance against specific learning standards, “whereas the stanine system is a norm-referenced method that ranks students relative to each other within a predetermined distribution”.
