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RESULTS OF the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) have hit town, throwing various concerned persons into mixed moods. For parents and candidates, it is time for nightmares as they await the outcome of the examinations which at this time is ready for accessing. We are aware that for some, accessing the results does not come easy. Even raising the GH�5 needed to buy the scratch card for the process could be stressful and almost impossible, for parents who live below the poverty line. Going to their schools to do so too demands that they pay their outstanding bills, another near-impossible challenge. Be that as it may, we pray that those with such challenges would eventually overcome them and see their results. It is our hope that all candidates who wrote the examinations would gain admission into senior high schools strewn across the country without the usual stress and challenges associated with the exercise. Many parents are dreading the financial challenges awaiting them when their kids are eventually admitted into senior high schools at a time when their real incomes have waned tremendously. They wish the dream of free senior high school had come to fruition and taken the burden of paying school fees and other incidentals off their overburdened shoulders. They can only pray that someday children would benefit from this programme. While some parents would eventually be able to weather the challenges, others might not; and their kids, regardless of how well they did in the BECE, would just drop out of school, sadly. Next week Friday is the day on which the results of the school placement exercise would be ready for accessing by candidates and parents. That is arguably the most stressful aspect of school admissions, perhaps second only to the payment of the fees and other financial challenges. Some might easily be placed; not so for others however. The incident of candidates being sent to schools outside what they chose, we think, should not be repeated this time around because of the additional stress this could inflict on the already challenged parents. We acknowledge the challenges the school placement personnel encounter in the course of their assignments; but we would plead that they undertake the rather tough function honestly. We wish politicians in influential positions would leave these persons alone to do their work so that at the end of the day, all stakeholders would be spared the inconveniences which come with this season. This is a tall wish because it is a fact that such influences would bear upon the placement personnel, anyway, much to the detriment of the exercise. We recall the recent announcement that the protocol arrangement which makes room for the admission of children of politicians into schools of their choice even when they do not make the required grades is going to be scrapped. We wish it were true. Until proven wrong, we can only put a wry smile and wait.