More ‘students’ will fail BECE if marking scheme is changed – Prof

Associate Professor at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Dr Kafui Etsey has said the country would record more failures in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) if the national examination marking scheme is changed.

Speaking at a West African Examinations Council (WAEC) forum themed “The fundamentals of the BECE Grading System,” he said Ghana could adopt its own system of assessing the youth and other countries could also learn from it.

The University professor has therefore urged the Ghana Education Service, the Ministry of Education and the West African Examinations Council to make amendments to the grading system to suit the country’s education system.

A spokeswoman for the not-for-profit-making organization (WAEC), Mrs Wendy Addy-Lamptey on her part said the Examinations Council uses only one marking scheme to grade all students (public and private) who sit for the BECE.

“The final marking scheme is developed for each subject at the end of the Preliminary Coordinating meeting and all examiners use this final marking scheme to mark scripts of all candidates for that subject,” she said at the forum.

The BECE was first conducted in the 1990s as a result of the 1987 Educational Reforms. The reforms came with the introduction of Continuous Assessment Scores as a component of the total score to be used for grading.

Administered to only final-year students in Junior High School, the Standard Nine (Stanine) Grading system was adopted for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).

In other news, the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Dr Eric Nkansah says Basic Education Certificate Examination will not be cancelled by the central government after the 2023 academic year.

In his contribution at a West African Examinations Council forum themed “The Fundamentals of the BECE Grading System” the Director-General said second-year Junior High School (JHS) students will sit for the national examination.

“We are not cancelling BECE, what is confusing people is we are now moving away from the old objective based to the standard-based curriculum. It does not mean that those who are on the standard-based would not write BECE

Perhaps maybe the nature and form of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) will change, BECE for School is not cancelled we are writing it for even those who are in Junior High School 2 will also write,” the GES Director said.