Twenty-six candidates failed to turn up for BECE

New Abirem, April 27, GNA - A total of 26 out of 2,658 candidates failed to turn up to write this year's Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) in the Birim North and Akyemmansa Districts in the Eastern Region.

Out of the 15 girls who were absent, five were pregnant, two indisposed and one deceased. Mr Eric Atakorah, the Birim North District Director of Education who is also in-charge of Akyemmansa made the disclosure to the Ghana News Agency at New Abirem after touring all the six examination centres in the two districts in the company of the Birim North District Coordinating Director, Mr John Owu and Mr Samuel Out, Deputy Education Director in-charge of Finance and Administration.

Compared to last year, Mr Atakorah said 2,254 were registered to write the examinations, however 30 were absent. He disclosed that, last year, one the two girls who failed to turn up was pregnant whilst the other one died.

On measures taken to improve the performance of candidates in the two districts, Mr Atakorah disclosed that as soon as he took over last year and realized that the performance of candidates was not the best, he instituted certain measures with his management team to improve upon the situation.

These included organizing end of term district common examinations for all final year students, mock examinations for all schools both public and private with sponsorship from Newmont Ghana Gold and the Ntiamoah Foundation, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), besides sanctioning of habitual absentee teachers.

Mr. Atakorah said monitoring and supervision have been increased to ensure effective teaching and learning. He was grateful to the assemblies for sponsoring teacher trainees to improve staffing of schools in the districts to ensure that each school had the required number of qualified teachers in the future.