BECE Resit Is Only For JHS Graduates

The resit of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) will be for candidates who have gone through nine years of basic education and have written the BECE, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has explained.

A Principal Public Affairs Officer of WAEC, Mrs Agnes Teye-Cudjoe, however, said WAEC would in due course come out with modalities for students who might have attended remedial schools and wanted to acquire the BECE certificate.

She told the Junior Graphic that the decision to restrict the BECE to only those who had done nine years of education was to prevent students in junior high school (JHS) Form One and Two from writing the examinations.

“We don’t want the situation where the Form One and the Form Two students would be writing the exam. It is after you have gone through the nine years of education that you can resit,” she explained.

Asked how many subjects one could rewrite, Mrs Teye-Cudjoe said that would depend on the number of subjects a candidate failed in and would want to resit.

With regard to the payment of subsidy for BECE candidates as was done by the government, she said private candidates would not benefit from the subsidy and that candidates would have to pay the entire registration fee.

WAEC currently charges GHC 50 per candidate for the BECE registration.

“While in school, the government gave everybody the opportunity to write and pass the examination. So if you fail and want to resit you have to pay on your own,” she said.

From February 2015, candidates who fail the BECE would be allowed to resit the examination as private candidates.

The decision followed an agreement reached between the government and WAEC to allow students who failed the BECE to resit as private candidates.

With regard to the use of continuous assessment records for the resit, WAEC said that would not be required and that candidates would be graded over 100 per cent.

Source: Daily Graphic