WAEC to cancel 2023 registration of unqualified BECE candidates

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) following the conduct of this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination slated for August 7 to August 2023 says it will cancel the registration of unqualified BECE candidates.

Mr John K. Kapi, Head of Public Affairs, WAEC, at a press briefing, said it had come to his outfits notice to some parents moving their wards in Basic Stage Six, JHS 1, 2, and 3 in private schools to public schools to register for the exam.

Describing the move as a practice against the Ghana Education Service (GES) and West African Examinations Council (WAEC) regulations, the WAEC official said the Council would not hesitate to cancel such unqualified registration.

“Council is investigating a number of such cases and the registration of such candidates would be annulled. Parents are urged not to traumatise their wards by such actions,” Mr John K. Kapi told stakeholders at the press briefing.

A total number of 600,714 candidates, representing 300,323 males and 300,391 females from 18,993 private and public Junior High Schools (JHSS) across the country are expected to sit for the national examination from August 7, 2023.

The Head of Public Affairs, WAEC, said the BECE for school candidates would be held at 2,137 examination centres across the country, while 15 centres mainly in regional capitals would be used for the BECE for private candidates.

Mr Kapi said the number of final years Junior High School students that registered for this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) was 8.8 per cent higher than the year 2022 entry figure of 552,276.

He said with regard to the BECE for private candidates, a total entry figure of 1,743 candidates was recorded. This he said is made up of 889 boys and 854 girls adding that this year’s figure is 5.4 per cent higher than the entry figure of 1,132 for 2022.

In a related development, the management of the not-for-profit-making organization (WAEC) has cautioned final-year students to sit for the 2023 BECE and WASSCE for School against joining WhatsApp groups of rogue websites.

The Head of National Office (HNO) of WAEC, Wendy Addy-Lamptey in an interview with Daily Graphic said any website which entices candidates to either download WAEC-confirmed topics or join its social media platforms is rogue.

“WAEC has not confirmed any topics in any subject to anyone. when any website required a candidate to download and in the process, he or she was asked to input a telephone number, “That is a clear case of a rogue website,” she said.