Napo in a photograph with the leadership of the Anglican Church at Saint Anne’s in Kumasi
BECE CANDIDATES who will take part in this year’s examinations have been sternly warned against indulging in examination malpractices.
Minister of Education, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh aka ‘Napo’, gave the warning 24 hours to the examination.
The examination will start at all centers across the country today Monday, June 5 and it will end on Friday.
Speaking with DAILY GUIDE, Napo warned teachers and officials that would monitor the examination not to indulge in any illegalities.
According to Napo, any official or teacher found culpable of contributing to examination malpractices will not be spared.
“Any teacher or official that would be nabbed for playing roles in examination paper leakage or any illegality would regret his actions.
“Such unpatriotic people would severely be punished according to the laws of the land to serve as deterrent to others”, the minister stated.
Napo admonished the BECE candidates to learn hard and shun the temptation of cheating so that they would not get themselves into trouble.
He reminded the BECE candidates that passing the examination is not an arduous task, provided they studied hard, urging them to be serious with their education.
The Education Minister also told the pupils that they stand the golden chance of benefitting from the free education policy of the NPP government if they pass.
In this regard, Napo charged the pupils to do their utmost best and pass the examination, saying “May God be with them so they pass with flying colours”.
Napo granted the interview few minutes after the Saint Anne’s Anglican Church in Kumasi honored him with a citation and a precious Bishop’s badge.
The honour was in recognition of the law maker’s exemplary works for the Anglican Church and Ghana in general, which span for many years.
GES Appeals
Meanwhile the Ghana Education Service (GES) says the five-day examination will be written at 1,702 centres involving 15,185 participating schools with 468,053 candidates made up of 241,148 males and 226,905 females taking part.
There are 57 Blind, 453,654 ICT and 199,059 French candidates registered to write the examination, a statement from the GES Acting Director General, Prof Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa said.
“I wish to inform and appeal to the general public to assist the Ghana Education Service (GES) to monitor the conduct of this year’s BECE across the country. The GES needs the assistance and support of all Ghanaians especially parents, guardians, the candidates themselves, security agencies, civil society organizations, non-governmental organizations, religious and traditional leaders, invigilators, supervisors, inspectors and indeed the media to ensure a leakage-free BECE this year as you did for us to an have incident-free examination last year.
“As stakeholders in education we are entreated to be extra vigilant and gather intelligence reports on any compromises of question papers from schools and communities or its likelihood and assist the Ministry, GES and the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to avert its occurrence.
“I wish to remind all that there are sanctions imposed on candidates who cheat in the examinations. WAEC has introduced the Item Differentia Profile (IDP) software which will be used to scan the objective papers to detect collusion. Candidates are encouraged to do independent work to demonstrate their knowledge and skills”, the statement said.
FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi