Correspondence from Western Region:

A total of 1,815 candidates are writing the 2020 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in the Ellembelle District of the Western Region.

The nationwide exams which commenced today, September 14, 2020, is expected to end on Friday, September 18, 2020.

In Ellembelle District, 927 boys and 883 girls are taking part in the exams.

Speaking exclusively to GhanaWeb's Western Regional Correspondent, the Ellembelle District Exams Coordinator, Mr. Denis Bansah, he disclosed that six centers have been created for the exams.

"We have six centers, one is at Nkroful Agricultural Senior High School, another one at Esiama Technical and Senior High School and the rest are Atuabo Methodist Primary School, Aiyinasi Holy Child School, Aiyinasi Methodist Primary School, and Bonzo Kaku Senior High School.

"In all, we are having 1,815 candidates taking part in this year's BECE. Nkroful for instance we have 16 invigilators, 2 assistant supervisors and one supervisor who are taking charge of the examination from Monday to Friday", he told GhanaWeb.

He added that the examination will be in two sessions - morning and afternoon - in all centers across the country. The morning session begins from 9 am and ends somewhere 10:45 am and the second session starts from 1pm to 3 pm.

He, therefore, took the opportunity, to advise the candidates to report to the exams center at least 8am every morning and also go through all the Coronavirus safety protocols.

"So what we are telling our candidates I'd that by 8am since we are no more in normal times, we want them to be around 8 o'clock so that we can take them through COVID-19 protocols, checking of temperature, washing of hands and those things so we want them to report early to the center before the start of the exams," he urged.

Security

Mr. Denis Bansah told GhanaWeb that the security is tight and emphasized that the security will deal with any teacher who will flout the rules and regulations governing the exams.

"Security too is tight, as we speak,..the police is taking charge, we have security vehicles that will be doing the distribution and also at the various centers we have security personnel.

"So what we are telling the teachers is that you come, you bring your students or candidates to the center, you register them, write your name and other details then they go away because we don't want any teacher roaming around if you do that the security personnel will deal with you," he stressed.

Examination malpractices

He said they have cautioned the candidates not to engage in any form of examination malpractices and cheating to prevent cancellation of their results.

"For examination malpractices, we have been telling them that they shouldn't engage in any form of examination malpractice...And one thing that we are telling them is that bringing mobile phone into the examination hall is not allowed, it is never allowed, when you bring it and we get you, your entire result will be canceled for a while you will not be permitted to take any WAEC examination. So we are urging them that they should not come to the exams hall with any form of mobile phone even mathematical set we don't want it, we will be allowed you to use the maths set when maths and science papers and apart from these two subjects we don't want them to bring them to the exams hall", he said.

Previous BECE performance

He revealed, "considering last two years results, I may say that last year's one was encouraging and we are hoping that this year's one will be better off than the two years we had so we hope that we the District have a target that is 100 per cent pass for the District so we are hoping to get there".

Mock Exams

The Ellembelle District Exams Coordinator used the opportunity to commend the Member of Parliament MP for the area Mr. Emmanuel Armah Kofi-Buah and the Ellembelle District Assembly for sponsoring two Mock Exams to prepare the candidates adequately for this week examination.

"Yes the District organised Mock Exams for the candidates, we got the support from the MP for the area and then the District Assembly so the first we wrote was sponsored by the MP and then the second one was sponsored by the Ellembelle District Assembly so in all we wrote two mocks, he ended.

In all, seventy-nine (79) invigilators and supervisors have been engaged in this year's Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in the Ellembelle District.

However, 531,705 registered candidates are taking part in this year's Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) across the country.