As final year Junior High School students across the country start their Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) today, the Christian Council of Ghana has asked the West African Examinations Council and the police to tighten security to prevent any examination malpractices.

General Secretary of the Christian Council, Rev. Dr. Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong, said: “WAEC and others must spare pupils the painful experience of writing a paper, only to be recalled to write again because someone was irresponsible.”

He spoke on Joy FM’s Christian talk show, ‘A walk with Jesus’, on Sunday.

Rev. Opuni- Frimpong also minced no words when he said parents must desist from buying examination questions for their wards but rather teach them to work hard for success.

“The parents and others who are going around looking for questions to buy for their children must allow their children to work from a solid foundation; let’s teach them integrity,” he told the parents.

Since 2009, the incidence of examination malpractice has been on the rise, especially in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and the West Africa Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSSCE).

For instance, on the report  of trends of irregularity cases recorded in the BECE from 2009 to 2011, WAEC made the following revelations: In 2009, the number of candidates involved in examination malpractices stood at 525; 1,083 candidates in 2010 and 1,127 candidates in 2011.

Similar revelations were also made between 2012 and 2015. 

According to the West African Examinations Council, 453 students who took part in last year's West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) had their entire results cancelled.

In 2012, WAEC admitted that examination malpractice among students was increasing at an alarming rate and called for a joint effort among stakeholders in Education to help deal with the situation as the Council could not singlehandedly deal with the problem.  

This year, some 468,053 candidates BECE candidates are set to write this year’s examinations across the country, comprising 241,148 males, while 226,905 are females.

Meanwhile, a statement issued in Accra by the Director of Public Relations of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Rev. Jonathan Bettey, has underscored the GES’ resolve to would work with WAEC and security agencies to ensure that the candidates would write the examinations in a secure environment free from all forms of intimidation and malpractices.