Final year junior high school pupils at Denkyira –Obuasi in the Central Region are expected writing the ongoing Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), in spite of the fear that gripped the pupils following the murder of Captain Maxwell Mahama by some residents of the community last week.
Reports say 73 pupils were expected to write the examination but one of them was absent.
Dr Mathew Opoku-Prempeh, Education Minister
Confirming the number to the DAILY HERITAGE yesterday, Mr Alexandra Smart Tawiah, Public Relations Officer of the Central Regional Directorate Education, told the DAILY HERITAGE that the absentee did not show up not because of the barbaric lynching of Captain Mahama, but he stopped attending school for almost three months before the incident.
According to Mr Tawiah, they had the confirmation on Sunday at the District Education Oversight Committee meeting that the candidates would reside at Diaso Senior High School for the five-day examination.
He explained that 70 reported on Sunday ahead of the exam and two joined them on Monday (yesterday) before the examination started.
He said the examination went on peacefully and that “we did not encounter any problem from Denkyira-Obuasi as we anticipated.”
Background
Following the dastardly murder of Captain Mahama, who was the Commander of a military detachment stationed at Denkyira Obuasi in the Upper Denkyira West District to check galamsey activities, the residents fled the town for fear of being attacked by the military.
But so far, the military high command has managed to calm the nerves of the angry soldiers to refrain from attacking the residents to retaliate the death of their colleague.
Candidates
This year’s BECE, which commenced yesterday across the country, took place at 1,702 centres involving 15,185 participating schools.
The expected total number of candidates was 468,053, made up of 241,148 males and 226,905 females.
Fifty-seven are blind pupils, while 453,654 and 199,059 pupils registered to write Information Communication Technology and French respectively.
Pregnant candidates
Reports from Sekondi-Takoradi, the Western Regional capital, indicated that two candidates turned up to write the first paper pregnant. The two students were among over 7,000 candidates writing the BECE in Sekondi-Takoradi.
This was announced by the Western Regional Director of Education, Enyonam Amefugah, during her visit to some examination centres.
The examination, which commenced yesterday, June 5, will end on Friday, June 9, 2017.
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