Ghana’s Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) has not been reviewed since its introduction to the country’s educational system, Acting Director of the GES, Charles Aheto Tsegah, Michael has revealed.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday on whether BECE system of basic education had lived up to expectation over the years.
Mr. Aheto Tsegah said, ”honestly there haven’t been any evaluation of the examination[BECE education system]; we haven’t done that in a very constructive and robust manner…”
He explained that the Ghana Education Service has rather looked at the performance of candidates and the outcome of the examination.
”We can look at it [Evaluation of the BECE and success of the policy] going forward in the future,” he said.
The BECE concept has been criticised for the failure to achieve its aim of ”vocationalising eduction and developing psycho-motor education”.
The current system does not give candidates who fail the opportunity to re-write.
But National Coordinator of the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition, Leslie Tetteh has called on government to put up a committee to review the BECE education system introduced for over two decades.
”I think there are issues with the system itself; I agree that there should be a comprehensive review of it,” he said.
He noted that the broader review of the basic education system should be looking at assessing pupils learning ability and skills rather than the current, that looks at the emphasis on placement into Senior High Schools.
Mr. Tetteh also added that there is the need for the review of the entire basic education system. ”The JHS system as it was originally concieved was also to equip with some livelihood skills…; but I think that is an area that has been neglected over time, alot of the programs that have been implemented has not looked at the vocational aspect of the JHS system. It doesnt look too much at the skill development aspect of the JHS system,” he said.
He pointed out that recent report in terms of assessment of English [reading] and Mathematics shows that alot Ghanaian children are not doing well. ”The assessment for 2013 indicates that in all languages, including Ghanaian languages [apart from the Ewe language] more than 90 percent scored zero percent.”
”We need to do a comprehensive review of the system [BECE system],” he concluded.
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) is responsible for several examinations. The main ones are the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for Junior High Schools and the West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) for Senior High Schools.
The BECE was introduced as the final exams written to complete basic education abotut 24 years ago. Snd for this period the examination has not seen any holistic comprehensive review.
About 422,946 candidates from 12, 562 public and private Junior High Schools (SHS) across the country are expected to sit for the 2014 BECE starting Monday.
By: Evans Effah/citifmonline.com/Ghana