Yesterday April 19, 2010 final year students of Junior High Schools (JHS) across the country began their Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). This year’s BECE has 350,888 candidates, and as usual candidates opened their examination with English and Religious and Moral Education papers.
As of press time yesterday there was no report of examination malpractice in any of the 1,278 examination centres in the country. Though, these are early days, yet for us at Today, we think it is a good start. Therefore, it is our hope that by the end of the one week examination period the 2010 BECE will be a success story.
Often times examinations in this country from the basic level to the tertiary level have been mired in one malpractice or the other. Such examination malpractices have included cheating, copying and sending into examination rooms prohibited materials.
The consequences of such selfish and misguided actions of one or two candidates have ended up in the cancellation of a whole school’s results. And this obviously affects not only the culprit student or students but the whole candidates who sat for that examination.
It is against such background that we are cautioning candidates who have ill-intentions to cheat in the examination hall. Such devious students must reflect on the fact that their actions when noticed do not affect them alone but their entire school. More important, too, we need to remind them that such actions are criminal and when they are caught will be made to face the full rigours of the law.
It is imperative that West African Examinations Council (WAEC) put effective measures in place to fish out candidates who have resolved to ruin the careers of others. This means that we need to have invigilators who are committed, extra vigilant and will not be blinded by overtures from teachers and students.
All these said the paper takes this opportunity to wish all our final year JHS candidates luck in their impending examination. We hope that they have adequately prepared and psyched themselves up for the examination.
There is no denying the fact that students during examinations become nervous and thereby commit very petty mistakes. We are advising all JHS candidates to keep their cool; follow instructions carefully; and read and understand questions well before answering them.
Once again the paper wishes all BECE candidates the very best of luck.
