Final-year junior high school (JHS) students in the country will be writing three new subjects in this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for School Candidates.

The new subjects are Career Technology, Creative Art and Design, and Arabic. Career Technology and Creative Art and Design, culled from the previous Basic Design and Technology (BDT), will be written by all the candidates, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has said.

Arabic will, however, be optional for candidates in Islamic basic schools.

Days extended

Due to the introduction of the new subjects, the 2024 examination will be taken in six days instead of the previous five days — Monday to Friday. The examination will start on Monday, July 8, 2024, and end the following Monday, July 15, 2024.

Throwing more light on the 2024 examination, the Head of Public Affairs of WAEC, John Kapi, told the Daily Graphic that new subjects could be introduced any time since it was an examination that was solely Ghanaian, and so it was the government that determined what it wanted to be taught and students examined in.

Mr Kapi said the council had just finished the registration of candidates and was now going to do the breakdown of candidates writing the various subjects. WAEC, he said, was ready for the examination as all meetings related to it had been concluded, adding that sample questions had been sent to schools and posted on the council’s website.

“The printing exercise will start very soon, and so we are on course,” he emphasised. In the case of Arabic, he said it was the first time the subject was being examined at the BECE.

He said the subject could be best described as an elective, and could also be written by persons who believed they were proficient in it and wanted a certificate to that effect.

Timetable

Per the official timetable released by WAEC, candidates will write English Language and Religious and Moral Education on Monday, July 8, 2024. On Tuesday, July 9, 2024, candidates will write Science and Computing, which was previously Information, Communication and Technology (ICT), and then write Social Studies and Creative Art and Design on Wednesday, July 10, 2024.

The candidates will write Mathematics and Ghanaian Language on Thursday, July 11, 2024, while French and Career Technology will be written on Friday, July 12, 2024.
Arabic will then be written on Monday, July 15, 2024.

Before the registration for the BECE for School Candidates, the Ghana Education Service indicated that the mandatory subjects were English Language, Mathematics, General Science, Social Studies, Religious and Moral Education, Career Technology and Creative Art and Design.

Ghanaian languages, it said, were classified under elective subjects, with French, Arabic and Computing being the optional subjects.

Curriculum

This year’s BECE candidates will be the first batch to sit the examination under the Common Core Curriculum. In view of that, WAEC said school and private candidates would be examined differently as a result of the introduction of the curriculum.

The curriculum attempts to address the quality aspect in the form of improved learning experiences. The new curriculum seeks to shift learners away from rote learning to acquiring critical learning skills.