According to a survey, the majority of parents of Junior High School children who took the 33rd edition of the Basic Education Certificate Examination were dissatisfied with the provisional BECE results announced by the West African Examinations Council. The survey showed that 95% of respondents were not excited about the results of the 2023 BECE.
2023 BECE Results Spark Outcry from Parents and Candidates
For most parents, what their wards obtained was far from reality. The results they received in the 2023 BECE have shocked many students. Parents cannot just believe their eyes if their children score poor grades. For many students, obtaining a grade between aggregate 20 and 48 was the least expected.
“They must to recheck the results again the grade we got was not good kraa they we write is not what we got”: Solomon
In the examination hall, the way candidates put forth their answers plays a key role in the scores they obtain. Writing lazy answers and just listing points in one single sentence without explaining and providing good examples at the BECE will surely lead to failure.
Some students also underestimate questions and answer them anyhow with half-baked answers, which come with so many spelling mistakes and grammatical errors that will surely lead to a loss of marks and poor grades.
Many BECE students are not trained and equipped with question-answering skills; hence, they may have the facts in the answer hall to be able to score full marks, yet the presentation of the final answer leaves much to be desired.
WAEC announced in a blog post seen on November 9 that the BECE results were authorized by the Examiners’ Appointment Committee after the completion of investigations into many incidences of irregularities found during the examination and script marking.
“The subject results of 12 school candidates and 3 private candidates for bringing foreign materials, namely, prepared notes, textbooks, and printed materials, into the examination hall or colluding with other candidates,” WAEC said.
The non-profit group further stated that the whole results of 41 school candidates and one private applicant were cancelled for having mobile phones in the examination hall during the conduct of the BECE 2023.
Despite the West African Examinations Council’s (WAEC) promise that the preliminary BECE results available on eresults.waecgh.org are legitimate and genuine, some students are dissatisfied with their ratings.
“The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) should check the results again because what I wrote is not 1% closer to what I got as my results,” stated a prospective candidate who appeared for the national exams.
While some are disappointed with the 2023 BECE results, others believe that the Stanine Grading System utilized for the BECE is not a good approach to accessing junior high school pupils at the national level.
You may wish to know the overall best students in a given subject across the country, but it demoralizes hardworking students who did not copy or did not have the opportunity to examine stolen exam questions.
The Stanine Grading System, in my opinion, is not the best way. The Stanine Grading System can be implemented at the school or district level, but it is unsuitable at the national level due to the large number of students who take the BECE.
A total of 600,900 candidates from 18,993 public and private junior high schools (JHSs) across the country registered to take the school examination, which was conducted in August this year.
There are 53 candidates with visual impairment, 366 with hearing impairment, and 54 with other special educational requirements included in this figure. The BECE was held in 2,137 locations around the country. There were 3,366 candidates who did not show up.
The West African Exams Council administered the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for private candidates this year, with 1,839 candidates taking part. There were 942 men and 897 women in total.
READ: SHS Propectus To Be Reduced For 2023 BECE Graduates
The test was held in fifteen locations, the majority of which were provincial capitals. 61 of the total number of potential candidates who entered the private examination for the 2023 edition were absent.