Deaf pupils in the Central Region have blamed their abysmal performance at the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) on markers of their examination scripts. They say markers of their examination papers are teachers of hearing students and so it is likely that they do not fully understand them as deaf students, who use the sign language. They have therefore called on the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to get teachers from deaf schools to mark their BECE papers. They noted that often teachers who taught hearing pupils were made to mark their final examination papers and said this was one reason for the high numbers of failures in deaf schools. They contended that it was very likely that teachers of hearing pupils would find problems understanding them. "We use the sign language and sometimes strictly marking the papers does not help us," said one of them. Deaf pupils use 11 years for their basic education but use the same syllabus and write the examinations with their hearing colleagues, except that they are given extra one hour for an examination paper. The two deaf schools in the Central Region, a region noted as the citadel of education, are the Cape Coast School for the Deaf (Cape Deaf) and the Swedru School for the Deaf, have not performed so well in the BECE. In the last BECE, for instance, both schools recorded zero per cent in the BECE, meaning that no student had aggregate 30, the pass grade. Jessica Nortey, a JHS three pupil of Cape Deaf, signed through a teacher and urged the government to work to provide them with adequate learning materials, enough teachers and space and will see the wonders they would perform. The Assistant Headmistress of the school, Mrs Grace Holdbrook, said the school needed extra classrooms to ensure effective teaching and learning. She noted that the 378 pupils needed extra attention and ideally, every five pupils should have a teacher assigned to them. However, she said the smallest class size is about 20 pupils, with some as large as 30 or more, adding that this was not the best. Mr Kweku Nkrumah, a teacher of the Swedru School for the Deaf, said conditions in the school were poor. He said because the school had no boarding facilities children travelled long distances to the school, which makes them too tired to learn. He said a three-unit classroom served the whole basic school; from class one to JHS three, stressing that the situation did not promote any effective academic work. Source: The Mirror