A child’s rights activist, Bright Appiah, has called on the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and the Ghana Education Service (GES) to be flexible enough to allow the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates in Bunkpurugu who were not able to sit for their first two papers to do so at a more immediate time.
The activist argued to Citi News that “in all matters, the law provides that we look for the best interest of children… WAEC is no exception to that.”
Over 200 BECE candidates from two communities in the District were unable to sit for the English and Religious and Moral Education papers taken on Monday, due to a change in their examination centres.
But WAEC has indicated that such candidates would have to defer and re-sit these papers in February 2018.
Nonetheless, Mr. Appiah believes these unforeseen circumstances should not deprive any candidate of their rights.
“Once you are bringing services to children and once the state has declared something to be free and compulsory to children then nothing else should inhibit the process in terms of how children will access it.”
“There is nowhere in the law that children should write the exams within a week. There are rules and regulations that state how examinations need to be conducted and since this is an issue which is not their doing, I think that WAEC should be flexible enough to give these children the opportunity,” he added.
WAEC has noted that, the conduct of standardized examinations and its accompanying complexities prevent it from rescheduling an immediate sitting for the two papers and the GES Public Relations Officer, Rev. Jonathan Bettey toed a similar line.
Speaking to Citi News, Rev. Bettey said “seriously that opportunity may be given to them to write but not during this time that they are writing. I believe that after Friday, there will be an answer to the request of the public… There is the need for us to sit down and think through this issue and see how best it could be addressed but not immediately or during this major examination.”
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
