Tight security against exam malpractice greets this year's BECE

The 2021 BECE began today

A total of 571,894 candidates are expected to sit for the exams

WAEC has assured that the will no exam leakages for the BECE


This year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) has taken off smoothly across the 2,158 examination centers with tight security measures put in place on the first day,

Read full articleMonday, November 15, 2021, to ensure a malpractice–free exams.

Although the West African Examination Council (WAEC) has assured that there will be no examination paper leakages for the BECE, stakeholders within the educational space have cast doubt on the assurance.

This is because one issue that comes up every examination year is exam malpractices including students sneaking foreign materials into the examination halls and leakage of exam questions which are all meant to aid them to pass the paper they write.

Some centers GhanaWeb visited saw the barring of mobile phones around exam centers being enforced together with invigilators and supervisors thoroughly searching students before entering their respective halls.

At Accra Academy, one of the examination centers, the supervisor of the center who also doubles as the Assistant Headmaster (Academics) of the school, John Odame Adjei, expressed satisfaction with the tight security measures put in place to ensure a credible exams.

“We didn’t detect anything [foreign material]. We had a briefing for the teachers and candidates last week Thursday. They brought sanitizers and everything. We didn’t detect anybody with foreign material. There was no disturbance in the exams so it was a smooth exam that we wrote this morning. Those [BECE candidates] who were present, everybody conducted himself well. Invigilators were also on time because they are invigilators from our school here. Everybody was on top of his job,” he said.

Mr. John Odame Adjei added that he hopes the smooth take off of the exams will continue to the end.

“We have a smooth exam and we hope it will continue for the rest of the papers,” he stated.

He also mentioned the timely availability of examination materials to the center to commence the paper, emphasizing that no issue hampered the smooth start of the first day's exam.

“Luckily they have a depot in the school so we started at exactly 9am. The was no problem. All the materials were available,” he stressed.

In total, 571,894 final year JHS students are expected to sit for this year’s BECE.