Thirty-six prison inmates nationwide are writing this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). 

The 36, who are all males, comprise 18 juveniles from the Senior Correctional Centre (SCC), seven from the Nsawam Medium Security prison, six from the Ho Central Prison and five from the Kumasi Central Prison.

The Chief Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Prisons Service, Chief Supt. Adamu Abdul Latif, who revealed this to the Daily Graphic, said the inmates were fully prepared by qualified teachers from the Service and some from the Ghana Education Service.

He was, therefore, optimistic that the inmates would excel in all the subjects.

Chief Supt. Latif explained that the inmates were registered with centres close to the prisons.

They were, therefore, transported to and from the examination centres under guard.

The BECE, which is organised every year in Ghana’s education system, marks the transition from the Junior High School to the Senior High School and technical tnstitutions in the country.

The Ghana Prisons Service, in its quest to deliver on its mandate in line with modern universal best practices, introduced formal education to the inmates in 2007.

This was to help them acquire some basic literacy skills, as well as a certificate to facilitate their smooth reintegration.

The first batch, which was made up of 21 juveniles and young offenders, sat for the BECE in 2009 and had a 100 per cent record.

The service has been recording 100 per cent passes since then.
 

More officials arrested

Meanwhile, 16 more examination officers have been arrested for engaging in a malpractice in the ongoing BECE.

This brings to 25 the number of persons who have been picked up within three days for trying to bring the examination into disrepute.

The suspects included two heads of school, one supervisor, with the rest being invigilators.

Briefing the Daily Graphic on the latest incident yesterday, the Head of Public Affairs of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), John Kapi, revealed that two of the suspects had absconded while the rest were in police custody, pending interrogation and prosecution.

“Out of the 25, only three are not teachers. As we speak we have picked up two headteachers, who were distributing materials to the children in the examination hall,” he said.

Mr Kapi said one of the incidents happened at Tinkong, near Koforidua, in the Eastern Region while most of them happened in Atebubu and Kintampo in the Bono East Region .

The rest occurred in the Greater Accra, Bono  and Ashanti regions.

He, however, said that WAEC’s investigations and monitoring were ongoing.

Deaths

Meanwhile, two BECE candidates have been reported dead. One incident involved a 14-year-old girl at Kwahu Praso in the Eastern Region and another in the Assin Amoakrom in the Central Region.