Make Northern Region Proud In BECE Exams … Minister Tells Candidates

The Northern Regional Minister, Salifu Saeed has charged the 2017 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) Candidates to excel in the ongoing examination to enable them benefit from the government's Free Senior High School education policy.

The Minister, who expressed disappointment at the abysmal performance of schools in the region in the BECE and West Africa Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) examinations, advised the candidates to make their families and Northern Region proud with excellent performance this time round.

The Northern Region has performed abysmally over the years, competing with the Upper East and Upper West for the bottom positions on the BECE ladder.

About 40,606 candidates are writing the BECE in the Northern Region with 22,170 boys and 18,236 girls from 810 Junior High Schools.

It is believed that for the past 10 years, most of the BECE graduates in the Northern Region are not getting the required grades to enter into Senior High Schools. As a result, many of them are entering into 'Kayaye', prostitution and 'Sakawa' among others.

The poor performance of students at the basic education level has become a major source of concern to many stakeholders in Northern Region, who are calling for immediate solution to the phenomenon.

The Northern Regional Director of Education, Alhaji Mohammed Haroon Cambodia, at a recent Education Forum organized by the Northern Regional League of Youth Association, in collaboration with Youth Empowerment for Live (YEfL), held in Tamale attributed the abysmal performance of the students to several inhibiting factors.

According to him, majority of the final year students in the region refuse to attend classes after registration but rather engage in hooliganism, watching of pornographic films, internet fraud (Sakawa), sexual immorality and all manner of indisciplines.

Alhaji Haroon Cambodia also blamed teachers in the region for contributing greatly to the abysmal performance of the students through teacher absenteeism and what he termed as “teacher presenteeism”, where teachers report to school but fail to teach students.

He also blamed the issue on poor monitoring and supervision as well as poor parental control and lack of community support.

The Regional Director of Education therefore appealed to Chiefs, opinion leaders and other stakeholders to support the Ghana Education Service in ensuring proper monitoring and supervision to prevent teachers from toying with the future of the students.

He also appealed to parents in particular to closely monitor their adolescent children and prevent them from peer pressure, sexual immoralities, drug usage and other negative acts.

The Northern Regional Minister, who visited the various examination centres yesterday, with other officials, encouraged the candidates to pass their exams without resorting to any examination malpractices.

Meanwhile, report reaching The Chronicle indicates that over two hundred eligible candidates from two communities in the Bunkpurugu District could not take part in the examination on Monday.

According to the Assemblyman for Kambatiak, Duut James Yoogrin, this is due to a change in the exams centre.

He said the new centre was too far from the communities that the candidates hail from. Mr. Yoogarin said he is in talks with the District Coordinating Director of Bunkprugu to resolve the matter.

From Edmond Gyebi, Tamale