Renowned educationist Prof. Stephen Adei has disclosed that his school, the Ghana Christian International High School, stopped using the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) more than a decade ago as an admission requirement because they believe it is not credible.
This is due to widespread examination malpractices and cheating in the BECE examinations, which do not present a true academic assessment of students.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show during a discussion on the Hotline Documentary: Dark World of BECE, Prof. Adei revealed, “For 11 years, Ghana Christian International High School in Accra has not used BECE as an entrance requirement because we don’t trust them.”
He explained that although the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) continues to introduce measures to fight cheating, the problem remains deep-rooted.
“I must say that WAEC has been trying to catch up; there is a catch-up game. It seems the things are entrenched and always the things happen before they try. For example, deploying monitoring teams, some of whom have also been corrupted; arrest and prosecution of only a few; cancellation of results… so they are trying, but there are many against the tide,” he said.
The former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) said that the issue of cheating in schools mirrors the wider decay in national values.
“What is happening is a reflection of the moral degradation or degeneration in our society. When you see politicians openly bribing their way, giving money in the open to everybody else. When we see galamsey, people say that ‘so long as we get money, even if we poison the whole nation, we don’t care’. Corruption in the public sector, the decadence in the homes, because it’s parents who are sponsoring these,” he stated.
He said that the root cause is the pressure in society to succeed at all costs, even when the means are dishonest.
“Now the question is why? There are a lot of ills in our society and pressure to perform, and, irrespective of how you do it. So people now have a lot of mansions they cannot explain and cars that their income does not support. And that is going down into the schools to say that once you achieve, irrespective of how, society will recognise you. Then there is a very big problem which the World Bank in 2016 called schooling without learning,” Prof. Adei warned.
He added that the poor quality of education at the basic level was worsening the challenge.
“Our primary schools in the public sector; practically, the children go through school totally illiterate. If you go to a place like Togo, by the second year in primary school, every child is literate.
“And if it is not addressed, these people will therefore go through and will have a way of getting some certificates anyway. And because of that, most of the children have very poor study habits,” he explained.
This follows a JoyNews Hotline investigation led by GH Probe’s Francisca Enchil that reveals how some officials of the Ghana Education Service (GES), alongside supervisors, headteachers and invigilators, transformed the sacred national exercise into an organised crime syndicate – trading academic integrity for financial gain.
At two examination centres in Accra – Derby Avenue RC Basic School and St. George’s Anglican Basic School – investigators found shocking collusion.
Invigilators openly demanded ‘tokens’ of GHS60 daily, supervisors pocketed envelopes of GHS400, and candidates were even asked to contribute to a so-called “Aseda Offertory”.
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