There is No GES rule is against Brilliant JHS 1 and 2 students sitting BECE? How true and factual is this bold statement?
News about Ghana Education Service (GES) fishing out all JHS1 and 2 students who joined their colleagues in JHS3 to write the 2023 BECE has been trending in the past few days.
However, following the new development, John Akunzebe, the Upper East Regional Chairman of the National Graduate Teachers Association (NAGRAT), pupils in their first and second years of Junior High School (JHS) are not legally prohibited from taking the Basic Education Competency Examination (BEC).
John told Dreamz FM that the Ghana Education Service (GES), which is in charge of pre-tertiary education, disapproves of this behaviour but is unable to prevent it because there is no law prohibiting students from taking exams before their last year.
Per the GES statements made in the past, only students in JHS3 qualify to sit the examination. It has also in the past called on schools not to register candidates from other schools. Private schools are often at the receiving end of this Brilliant JHS 1 and 2 students sitting BECE since their students often end up being registered for the BECE after their parents enter into some sort of agreements with the schools doing the BECE registration. Most often, it is the public schools that receive and register such candidates.
“As far as I know, there is no law in GES that when you are in form 1 or 2, you cannot write BECE. There’s no law. There’s no statue. But then there’s a principle, they (GES) frown on it,” he told the host of Dreamz FM Breakfast show.
This revelation that there is No GES rule is against Brilliant JHS 1 and 2 students sitting BECE, will make the practice a popular one from the 2024 BECE scheduled for July 2024.
The NAGRAT Chairman made these comments in response to a GES letter asking for the names of all JHS 1 and 2 students who were absent during the time of the 2023 BECE.
Many people assume that the Ghana Education Service is trying to track down the pupils from lower-year Junior High Schools who sat for the national exam so that they can penalise them for participating.
Mr. Akunzebe cautioned that if the Ghana Education Service (GES) takes any disciplinary action against the prospective students for sitting the BECE for School candidates, it may be setting itself up for a legal struggle, which it will inevitably lose.
The NAGRAT member conceded that only students in their last year of junior high school should take the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), but maintained that those kids who were not in their final year yet took the exam were within their rights to do so.
“What they (GES) are doing, if they collect these names and pupils have written, and they want to do ABC and there is a litigant, the litigant will go to court because we are a country of rule of law,” he cautioned the Ghana Education Service.
“There’s no law yet they frown upon it. That’s the problem of the Ghana Education Service (GES) we are talking about. If you think that you frown on this thing, and it’s not good, then put in the statutes; everybody will see it clear,” he said.
Mr. Akunzebe believes that talented and mature kids who have not yet completed junior high school should be able to take the national exam given to graduating from JHS students.
READ: 2023 BECE and WASSCE Results: How to Check Online and Buy Result Checkers
The Ghana Education Service must be blamed for the high number of students in JHS 1 and 2 who are now writing the BECE because they failed to apply the whip in the last ten years.
Now, it has become normal, and nearly all schools are engaged in the act.
The question is, why look for and punish students and not the heads of public basic schools who registered many of such students for the BECE?
