By Christabel Oboshie ANNAN, Accra
THE 2023 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) began smoothly yesterday across the country with no irregularity recorded after the first paper.
A total of 602,457 final-year junior high school (JHS) students from across the 16 regions of the country are participating in this year’s BECE, which started with Religious and Moral Education and English Language.
At the various centres The Finder visited to assess the conduct of the examination, there were no irregularity recorded after the first paper.
Ayawaso East Municipal
At the Ayawaso East Municipal, candidates were writing at four centres, namely, the St. Paul Lutheran School, The Flagstaff House Basic School, the Nima Cluster of Schools and Kanda Cluster of Schools.
The Municipal Director for Education at the Ayawaso East, Adisa Tassa, stated that there were 1,222 students registered in the District with 642 of them being girls and 580 being boys.
She said that there were four supervisors at each Centre with four assistant supervisors and 42 invigilators.
She added that there were about 367 candidates registered to write the exams at the Flagstaff House Basic School.
She explained that these 367 candidates came from five schools.
The Municipal Director for Education at the Ayawaso East, further said that six schools were assembled at the Kanda Cluster of Schools with 267 candidates.
“The Nima Cluster of Schools have 318 candidates and two students were absent. Those absent have been reported to have travelled abroad ; reason they couldn’t make it to write the exams” she explained.
Before the paper started
Prior to starting the paper at the St. Paul’s Lutheran School, she encouraged the candidates to be confident about what they have studied over the years and not fear about anything.
She noted that their teachers have taught them enough and have also learnt enough.
“Read carefully and make sure you’ve understood what is required of you before answering every questions on the paper” she advised.
Ms. Adisa hinted that this year’s papers have been serialised and as a result will help minimise cheating in the examination hall.
“This year, WAEC has serialised their questions. So the questions my Municipality is writing will not be the same as Ayawaso Central” she explained.
Students response after the Exams
Diana Amonoo, a candidate from King’s Royal Preparatory School, told The Finder that the exam was ‘cool’ because most of the questions came from what they had studied in school.
“The only thing was that some of the questions were a bit tricky but when you pay attention, you’ll get it” she added.
Firdaus Ahmed, another candidate from Kanda Estate 1 Basic School described the paper as “cool and normal”.
She stated that even though not everything she learnt came, she tried her best to answer all the paper.
According to her, she anticipates that the rest of the paper will be much easier.
Princella Ameyona of Angels Day Care Preparatory School said she ‘immediately smiled when she saw the paper’.
She noted that the questions were easy and that most of the topics she studied were asked.
“Looking at what I wrote I expect to score grade 1 or 2 in Religious and Moral Education,” she said.
Other papers
On Tuesday, they would write Integrated Science and Ghanaian Language and then on Wednesday, Social Studies and Basic Design and Technology.
Thursday would be Mathematics and Information and Communication Technology and Friday, French.
