The Education Ministry has warned parents and heads of schools against conniving with fraudsters to compromise the integrity of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).

The exams kick-starts tomorrow, Monday June 13, 2016 for final year Junior High School students across the country.

The West African Examination Council (WAEC) says it has instituted stringent measures such as flying question papers to examination centres to avert leakage of the questions this year.

This follows widespread leakages in the 2015 BECE and 2016 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) exams.

Deputy Education Minister, Samuel Okudjeto Ablakwa says parents and school-heads alike also have a crucial role to play in ensuring a leakage-free BECE this year.

Speaking at the congregation of the Regional Maritime University, the deputy minister said “we want to appeal to parents and school heads that the only way out is to support your children to study, to make good use of the time for studies and revision. There are no short cuts and there can’t be short cuts and short cuts will not be countenanced.

“So those who because they are heads of schools and they want to advertise 100 percent pass rate and so they will work with fraudsters to compromise the system, parents who are willing to pay anything, students themselves who want to follow so called ‘apo’ fraudsters, we need to get back to our values and the right way of doing these things.”

He stressed that it was only through hard work and focus on studies that the students can pass.

“If you follow leakages and it is detected, the papers are cancelled and you will have to re-write, so what is the point”, he queried.

This year's BECE will see a total of 461,012 candidates comprising 239,063 males and 221,050 females sitting for the exams at 1,598 centers across the country. The exams period is between June 13-17, 2016.