Parents panic as maths scripts of 165 BECE candidates reportedly go missing in Binduri

Despair has gripped parents and students in the Binduri District of the Upper East Region following reports that the Mathematics objective answer sheets of 165 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates from six schools have gone missing.

The affected schools are Benguri JHS, Christian Academy, Yaligun JHS, Amazing Grace JHS, Good Friends International JHS and Gumyoko JHS.

The candidates, drawn from 6 of the 12 Junior High Schools in the district, now face uncertainty over their placement into Senior High Schools (SHSs) as parents fear the missing scripts could affect their children's progression.

According to Ayamba Paul, a concerned parent and headteacher, they contacted the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) office in Bolgatanga on Monday and were informed that the Mathematics objective answer sheets of their wards could not be traced.

The parents described the situation as a nightmare for the affected students, who they said had studied hard and sat for all their papers with the expectation of gaining admission to SHS.

“My child wrote all the papers. How can you tell us that only Maths is missing? We want our children to be placed in SHS. They should not suffer for this,” one distraught parent told ModernGhana News.

Another parent, Yayra Aidam, said parents had invested heavily in raising and educating their children and knew their academic abilities, insisting that the future of the students should not be jeopardised because of what she described as someone’s negligence.

She has given the Ghana Education Service (GES) and WAEC a two-week ultimatum to ensure that the affected students are placed in SHS, warning that the parents would take a “hard decision” if their concerns were not addressed.

Rev. Pastor Joshua Sofo, another parent, said the development had taken an emotional and psychological toll on the affected students who constantly watched their mates being placed in schools.

He appealed to the authorities to urgently resolve the matter and ensure that the students were placed in their first-choice schools.

The parents said the situation amounted to punishing the students for an offence they had not committed, particularly because Mathematics is a core subject that forms part of the placement process.

They are therefore appealing to WAEC and the GES to urgently intervene to ensure that the 165 affected students are allowed to continue their education to the SHS level.