Daniel Fenyi, the Public Relations Officer for Ghana Education Service (GES), has said BECE candidates who fail Mathematics or English Language or both must remain at the Junior High School (JHS).
According to the GES spokesperson, students who fail to qualify for Senior High School placement should remain at the basic level to receive the necessary support to retake the examination the following year.
He argued that students who do not meet the required standard should be allowed to improve their performance rather than being pushed to the next level.
The GES PRO stressed that progressing students to Senior High School despite failing to attain the expected basic literacy and numeracy skills will leave them struggling academically.
Daniel Fenyi explained that, just as a student who repeats class five remains in that class to strengthen their understanding, students who obtain grade 9 should similarly be given time to improve their basic literacy and numeracy skills.
Speaking to Isaac Addae on Morning Starr on Starr FM, the GES Public Relations Officer, Daniel Fenyi, stated, “Students who fail to meet the required standard should be allowed to continue schooling at the basic level rather than progress to the next stage without the necessary foundational skills”.
“The message is that you repeat the class, you repeat the JHS. You will learn, we will strategise, we will advise you, and then we take the exams next year,” he said.
“If we push you to senior high school, you are simply going to struggle a lot at senior high school, he said.
Meanwhile, the development follows, the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) Secretariat Coordinator, Sherif Sulemana, has disclosed that 55,000 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE)candidates fail to meet requirements for placement.
He detailed that out of the nearly 620,000 who sat for the BECE exams, about 565,000 candidates have qualified for placement into Senior High Schools.
He explained that candidates who fail in either English or Mathematics are disqualified, even if they perform well in other subjects.
Speaking on JoyFM’s Super Morning Show on Thursday, September 3, Mr Sherif stated, “Based on our analysis, we have about 565,000 qualified for placement this year”.
“Those people have not failed in either English or Mathematics. So, you are disqualified from placement if you have failed in either English or Mathematics,” Mr Sherif explained.
He disclosed that the examination results also revealed varying levels of performance among candidates.
“You find out somebody got one, somebody got ten over 100, somebody got, say, twelve, twenty over 100, and that qualifies as a failure,” he said.
Mr Sherif further disclosed that approximately 55,000 candidates did not meet the requirements for placement.
When asked about the number of candidates who did not qualify for placement, he stated, “There are about 55,000”.
“If you look at the data for the performance of the candidates, we only had about 17 per cent of the candidates getting aggregates from 6 to 18,” he said.
“We only had about 252,000, or about 35 per cent of the candidates, getting from aggregate 6 to 24,” he added.
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