Act Swiftly To Find Placement For BECE Students- Stakeholders Told

The government and other education stakeholders have been urged to act proactively to find immediate placement for the Junior High School graduates who have been denied admission in Senior High Schools where they had been mandatorily placed by the Computerized School Selection Programme (CSSPP).

Mr. Kwame Appiah-Kubi, President of the Asekyerewa Students’ Association, an education NGO said this will end the bouts of frustration that students of this year’s batch of Basic Examination Certificate Examination (BECE) and their parents have gone through.

Raising the concern through the Ghana News Agency in Kumasi on Thursday, he said these students have unjustifiably suffered a string of mishaps beginning with the cancellation of five of their written papers due to massive leakages.

They had already gone through psychological stress - trepidation and intimidation when as young as they are they had only two weeks to prepare to rewrite the cancelled papers which was also done under heavy security presence, he said.

The cancelled papers include English Language 2, Religious and Moral Education 2, Science 2, Mathematics 2 and Social Studies 2.

Four teachers – Emmanuel Opoku, 29, Kwadwo Boateng 25, Kwadwo Danso, 34, and Boateng Collins, 29 – were arrested in the Ashanti Region for their alleged roles in the leakage.

As if that was not enough, Mr. Appiah Kubi said, it was heart-rending that the candidates had to suffer again when the results of some of them were cancelled and that of 6,812 others were withheld by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) pending investigation for alleged leakages and examination malpractices - a fact that has not been publicly substantiated.

“It should not be lost on anybody that the impact of these unfortunate incidences coupled with the latest frustration of these students being denied admission to schools they had been duly placed, can truncate their education which will make the country lose its potential future working class and leaders”, he said.

Mr Appiah-Kubi questioned why any serious nation should toy with the education of its younger generation when it is said to be key of development.

He also wondered why candidates had to suffer for examination leakages when they did not cause it and asked what happened to those of its officials and teachers arrested for their alleged complicity in the said leakages, at least to serve as deterrent to stem future occurrences.

Mr Appiah-Kubi called on WAEC to sit up and do its own homework to seal off the loopholes and not push the consequences on our innocent school children to kill their interest in education.

He also tasked WAEC to make the basis for the cancellation and withholding more transparent by involving school heads and even parents to erase all doubts.

The Asekyerewa Students’ Association, has since three years ago been championing efforts to improve the education of about 6,000 students living in four Districts – Effiduase, Kumawu, Ejisu and Juaben in the Ashanti Region.

This has been in the form of holding educational workshops on how to answer examination questions for candidates preparing for examinations, vacation classes and sporting activities to haunt for talents in remote areas.