This year's Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for final year junior high school (JHS) students will begin on Monday, June 15, with a total of 438,030 candidates participating.
The candidates are made up of 229,724 males and 208,306 females. The examination will end on Friday, June 19.
The number of candidates for this year represents an increase of 15,084 over last year’s figure of 422,946 final year JHS students who registered for the examination.
Some 13,434 basic schools — public and private — are taking part in the examination, which would be written at 1,546 centres across the country.
Supervision
The examination will be supervised by 1,546 supervisors and 1,466 assistant supervisors. A total of 15,326 invigilators who will be swapped in the course of the examination will take charge of the candidates.
The number of candidates who will be writing the information and communications technology (ICT) paper is 414,251 while that for French is 180,535.
Regional breakdown
A breakdown of the total candidates made available to the Daily Graphic showed that the Ashanti Region was presenting the highest number of candidates — 87,815. They are made up of 45,197 males and 42,618 females.
The Greater Accra Region follows with 78,436, made up of 37,915 males and 40,521 females.
The Central Region is presenting the third highest number of 45,900 candidates (23,936 males and 21,964 females).
The Western Region has 44,094 candidates that comprise 23,602 males and 20,492 females while the Eastern Region has 41,172, with 22,034 being males and 19,138 females; the Brong Ahafo Region also has 41,026 candidates who have registered for the examination; 22,278 males and 18,751 females.
Thirty-six thousand, two hundred and sixty-seven (21,019 males and 15,711 females) candidates will sit for the examination in the Northern Region while 31,267 candidates — 17,351 males and 13,916 females — are writing in the Volta Region.
The Upper East Region has registered 19,069 candidates (9,649 males and 9,420 females), while 12,521 candidates — 6,746 males and 5,775 females — will sit for the examination in the Upper West Region.
The examination will begin with English Language on June 15 and end with ICT on June 19, 2015.
In a related development, the Ashanti Regional secretariat of the Muslim Students Association has sent a goodwill message to junior high school candidates writing this year’s BECE.
“We pray and hope that you come out of the examination with flying colours,” a statement issued in Kumasi last Monday, said.
Advice to candidates
The statement, however, advised candidates to conduct themselves properly before, during and after the examination, and to observe strictly, the examination rules and regulations.
It also urged parents to continue to offer support to their wards to pass well in the examinations.
It called for collaboration between parents and teachers to appropriately ensure discipline and strict adherence to the rules to avoid any exams malpractice.
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