A total of 517,332 final-year Junior High School pupils will write this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
The figure represents an increase of 7,508 over last year’s figure of 509,824 candidates.
The 2019 candidates are from 16,871 public and private basic schools and are made up of 263,616 males and 253,716 females.
They will write the examination at 1,880 centres across the country.
According to statistics made available to Adomonline by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), 18, 136 invigilators would supervise the examination.
The Ashanti region, as usual, presents the highest number of candidates – 104,461 pupils made up of 52,945 males and 51,516 females, while the Greater Accra region will have 90,584 candidates which comprise 43,273 males and 47,311 females.
The Central region has 55,535 candidates (28,212 males and 27,323 females), while the Western region has 52,806 candidates (27,269 males and 25,537 females), with the Brong Ahafo region presenting 49,127 candidates (25,619 males and 23,508 females).
The Eastern region will present 47,964 candidates (24,883 males and 23,081 females), while the Northern region and the Volta region have 43,960 (23,900 males and 20,060 females) and 37,785 (19,978 males and 17,807 females) candidates respectively.
The Upper East region will present 22,001 candidates (10,812 males and 11,189 females), with the Upper West region presenting 13,109 candidates (6,725 males and 6,384 females).
This year’s BECE would be written from June 10-18, 2019.
For a smooth examination, chairman of the Parent Teacher Association Council, Alexander Yaw Danso is calling on WAEC to review the time-table for the BECE to enable candidates get ample time to write the examination.
According to Mr Danso, the Monday to Friday mode of writing the BECE puts a lot of pressure on the candidates.
Meanwhile, the Ghana Education Service (GES) Council Chairman, Mr Michael Nsowa, is advising candidates to desist from exam malpractices as they write the papers next week.
According to him, the President has mandated GES to ensure that anyone who passes gets access to free secondary education so they should not rely on any ‘apɔ’ (leaked papers) which may ruin their future.
Source: Adomonline| Kodwo Mensah Aboroampa | Adom News