Executive Director of the Institute for Education Studies (IFEST), Dr Peter Partey Anti, has described the Stanine Grading System used for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) as conceptually appropriate for second-cycle school placement. 

That, he said, was because the placement into senior high schools and technical institutes is fundamentally a selection and ranking exercise.

Dr Anti said the system enabled candidates to be compared according to their performance relative to the cohort and differentiated them for allocation into limited school and programme places.

Dr Anti, however, said the fact that the system was defensible for placement did not automatically make it the best possible system, stressing the need for the country to periodically evaluate its effectiveness.

Responding to questions from the Daily Graphic following concerns raised by private schools over this year's BECE results, he said the critical issue was whether the system ranked candidates fairly, accurately, and transparently enough for placement purposes, rather than whether Stanine measured absolute mastery of the curriculum.

“If BECE’s principal function is placement, some form of standardisation or norm-referencing makes statistical sense because candidates must be differentiated,” he said.

He said there was, however, a strong argument for considering standardised or appropriately scaled scores, which could provide greater precision than broad grade categories.

According to him, two candidates could receive the same grade despite meaningful differences in their underlying scores.

“The question should be: What scoring system produces the fairest and most precise ranking for placement?” he asked.

Grade 1

Dr Anti said concerns over the fact that only about four percent of candidates could occupy the highest Stanine category did not, on their own, establish that the system was unfair.

He explained that under the classical Stanine model, the highest category was intentionally occupied by approximately the top four percent of candidates.

“If BECE is principally a placement examination, restricting the highest category is not inherently problematic. Placement requires differentiation,” he said.

He said the more important considerations were whether the underlying score distribution was properly determined, whether grade boundaries were technically sound, and whether candidates were treated consistently.

Dr Anti also said allegations that the system disadvantaged candidates from private schools should be supported by evidence.

“Private schools are perfectly entitled to question the methodology. But if the claim is that the system systematically disadvantages private-school candidates, that is an empirical claim and must be supported with evidence,” he said.

He said any credible evidence suggesting systematic differences that could not be explained by candidate performance should be independently investigated.

Assessment

Dr Anti said the debate over the Stanine system also raised a broader question about whether Ghana's assessment philosophy had changed sufficiently to reflect the country's curriculum reforms.

He noted that while a standards-based curriculum focused on what learners knew and could do, Stanine primarily indicated where learners stood relative to their peers.

He said since BECE was now essentially used for placement, the country still needed a mechanism for ranking candidates, but that did not prevent a review of the system to achieve better alignment between curriculum, assessment, and placement.

“Curriculum reform without corresponding assessment reform risks creating a misalignment: we teach and assess classroom learning against standards, but at the exit point we primarily report relative position,” he said.

Dr Anti further called for greater transparency in the grading process to improve public confidence in the examination system.

He said the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and the Ministry of Education should clearly explain what BECE represented, particularly if it was principally a placement examination.

He said parents should understand that a grade of one did not necessarily mean 90 percent and above in the conventional classroom sense but represented a candidate’s position within a performance distribution.

Publication

He recommended greater publication of the technical basis for grading, structured engagement with public and private schools, parents and assessment experts, and periodic independent technical evaluation of whether Stanine remained the most appropriate placement mechanism.

Dr Anti also supported an independent assessment oversight or appeals mechanism to review serious examination complaints, audit assessment and grading procedures, and provide an independent avenue of appeal.

He said such a mechanism should not interfere with WAEC’s professional examination functions or duplicate its operations.

“WAEC should retain operational and technical independence in conducting examinations, while an independent mechanism provides external accountability, quality assurance, and credible appeals,” he said.

Dr Anti said the ultimate issue was whether the grading and placement system ensured that candidates with comparable performance were treated comparably and whether differences in performance were translated into placement fairly, transparently, and consistently.