BECE Students To Undergo Pregnancy Tests�Before Writing Exams

The lower Manya Krobo District Assembly (LMKD) in the Eastern Region is it to subject all female students who are preparing to write the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) to pregnancy tests before they are allowed to write the exams. The District Chief Executive (DCE), Isaac Agbo Tetteh, who disclosed this to The Chronicle at Kpong when he visited some schools in the town, said the rationale behind the idea was to curb teenage pregnancy, which is high in the area. According to him, if it comes out clearly that a student is pregnant after the test, that student would be taken through guidance and counseling, and depending on the months of the pregnancy, the Assembly, in consultancy with the District Education Directorate (DED), would expel the student. He expressed worry over the spate of teenage pregnancy in the district, particularly among school going children, where some even deliver in the course of writing the exams, whilst others dropout as a result of the canker. According to him, in 2009 alone, over 33 female students failed to write the BECE as a result of pregnancy. Giving out the statistics of students performances at the BECE, Mr. Agbo Tetteh stressed that out of the total number of students who sat for the examinations, only 10 students obtained aggregate six in 2008, whilst 18 obtained six in 2009. This development, to the DCE, was no the best, and that there was the need to put stringent measures in place to address the problem. Touching on the purpose of his visit to the schools, the DCE, who is also a former tutor at the Adisadel College in Cape Coast, said it was meant to identify challenges militating against quality teaching and learning in schools, and how to address them. According to him, the effort to salvage the dwindling standard of education in the district was his major priority; however, the realization of that goal was not the responsibility of the government alone, but all stakeholders in the educational sector. To this end, he implored residents of the area to support the government in ensuring quality teaching and learning in the various schools in the district. He assured the inhabitants of the district, of the preparedness of his office to construct one complex school of international standards in the area to raise the standard of education. Another intervention, according to DCE, would be collaboration of the Assembly with some seasoned teachers to select 280 brilliant students, made up of ten students each from the 28 Junior High schools in the district, for four-hour special teaching programmes in mathematics, Science and English, prior to the BECE every year. This would help to increase the number of students who get aggregate six, and other appreciable results during the BECE.