2021 BECE for School Candidates: Everything you need to know

The BECE for School Candidates (BECE) is a national annual examination administered by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) for final year students in both public and private Junior High Schools (JHS).

The Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) is for certification and selection of preferred Senio High School and Technical Institutes in Ghana.

According to the WAEC, candidates Continuous Assessment forms, 30% whilst the BECE for School Candidates forms 70% of the total assessment.

The examination is administered each year in June, except for 2020 the conduct of the examination was postponed to September amid the outbreak of the global locally transmitted coronavirus pandemic.

Entry

Registration of final year students to participate in the examination is done electronically in October/November each year. Head of schools after the registration are to submit a statement of entries, CDs together with the registration fees to the appropriate WAEC Office by specified dates.

Subjects

Currently, candidates sit for eight subjects during the examination but in some cases schools that offer french sit for nine subjects. French is however optional. The following are the subjects available to candidates:

• English Language
• Ghanaian Language and Culture
• Social Studies
• Integrated Science
• Mathematics
• Basic Design and Technology
• Religious & Moral Education
• Information and Communications Technology
• French (optional)

Grading

Candidates after sitting for the BECE for School Candidates are graded based on their performance in the external examination (objective and written) and Continuous (Internal) Assessment marks provided by the schools.

According to WAEC, it uses a nine-point numerical scale in grading the candidates with Grade 1 denoting the highest performance and Grade 9 the lowest.

Results

The Council usually releases the provisional results of candidates who sat for the basic examination in mid-August to enable successful candidates to further their education in Senior High Schools at the beginning of the academic year.

The non-profit-making organization after releasing the BECE results send them to the participating schools, for each candidate to receive a statement of results through his/her school.

Prospective candidates can also check their BECE results online with a scratch card at the WAEC’s results checking website www.waecgh.org.

Selection of schools

This part is the most crucial stage for candidates after the results are released. At this stage, candidates are placed to any of the various Senior High Schools in the country by the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS).

The Ghana Education Service (GES) has said candidates who were not placed into any of the Senior High Schools (SHS) to do a self-placement.

This means that candidates who were not automatically selected by the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) will have to choose the school of their choice depending on the grade they had.

Certificates

According to WAEC, it discharges the certificates to the schools for collection by individual candidates. Certificates are produced once and so lost or damaged certificates after collection are not replaced.

Source: Georgeweb.org