Is Ghana’s BECE Grading System Fair, Transparent and Constitutionally Defensible?

A million dollar question: Should a Child’s Educational Future Depend on the Performance of the Cohort?

Education is supposed to open doors. Examination results should help us understand what a child has learned, what the child can do, and where the child needs support. They should not become a statistical lottery in which a child's grade is significantly influenced by how other children performed.

That is why the continued use of the Stanine grading system for the BECE deserves serious public, technical and legal scrutiny.

Let me be clear: this is not an accusation that WAEC deliberately discriminates against particular schools or candidates. WAEC has stated that its marking process is standardised, that school status is not disclosed to examiners, and that Stanine grading has been used for the BECE since its inception. WAEC also acknowledges that, unlike teacher-made assessments, BECE grade boundaries are not fixed and vary according to candidate performance.

That last point is precisely why the debate matters.

A child's achievement should be capable of standing on its own.

If a child demonstrates exceptional competence in Mathematics, English or Science, parents and educators should be able to understand that achievement without having to interpret it principally through the performance of an entire cohort.

There is nothing inherently wrong with ranking candidates. Ranking can assist selection. Comparative statistics can also provide useful information.

But measurement and ranking are not the same thing.

The problem arises when a comparative mechanism becomes the principal language through which an individual child's achievement is communicated.

Imagine a child who performs exceptionally well but receives a grade that does not appear to reflect the level of competence demonstrated by the child's raw performance. The natural question from the parent is: What exactly did my child achieve?

That question deserves a meaningful answer.

This Is Also a Constitutional Question
Article 23 of the 1992 Constitution requires administrative bodies and officials to act fairly and reasonably and comply with the requirements imposed by law.

The Supreme Court's decision in Awuni v West African Examinations Council [2004] GHASC 25 demonstrates that WAEC's exercise of examination authority is not beyond constitutional standards of administrative fairness. The case concerned the treatment of examination results and affirmed that Article 23's requirements of fairness and reasonableness apply to WAEC.

I am therefore not suggesting that Stanine grading has already been declared unconstitutional or unlawful. That would require a proper legal determination.

I am saying something more modest and, in my view, more important:

A system affecting the educational future of hundreds of thousands of children should never be beyond scrutiny.

Article 28 places the interests and protection of children at the centre of our constitutional framework, while Article 38 establishes important state responsibilities concerning education and equal access.

These principles should inform how we design examinations.

We Need Reform, Not Abolition of Standards

I am not advocating the abandonment of standardisation.

Ghana needs credible national examinations. We need reliable standards. We need mechanisms that allow candidates to be compared fairly when scarce educational opportunities are being allocated.

But we can do better.
WAEC should consider a hybrid reporting system that gives parents and students more information such as the candidate's score or achievement measure, achievement level, comparative percentile where appropriate, and final grade.

That would tell us two things:
What did the child achieve?
And:
How did the child perform relative to others?

Both are useful pieces of information. Neither should necessarily erase the other.

WAEC and the Ministry of Education should therefore commission an independent review involving psychometricians, educationists, child-rights experts, statisticians and constitutional lawyers.

The objective should not be to attack WAEC.

It should be to improve Ghana's assessment system.

Our children deserve an examination system that is fair, transparent, intelligible and educationally meaningful.

We cannot tell a child that achievement does not matter because somebody else performed better.

Ranking has its place. Selection has its place. But ranking must never erase achievement.

A child is not a percentile.
A child is not a statistical position.
A child is a human being whose education, confidence and future may be profoundly affected by the way we measure and communicate achievement.

As a country, we must therefore have the courage to ask difficult questions, examine the evidence and reform what can be improved.

Our children deserve nothing less.