The Member of Parliament for Builsa South and Deputy Ranking Member of the Parliamentary Committee on Education, Hon. Clement Abas Apaak, has revealed that the current BECE candidates did not receive textbooks from Junior High School year one to three.
He bemoaned the alarming disparity in educational resources for Junior High Schools across the country, highlighting the urgent need for intervention to address this glaring inequality.
“Guess what? The same government, which cannot find money to pay for the printing of sufficient textbooks for our wards in basic school based on the new curriculum, gave away 12M dollars to a company for no work done at Pwalugu, gave away 2.5M dollars for feasibility studies for a sky train, and paid 399M cedis for the biggest pit, among others”.
Hon. Clement Abas Apaak
He pointed out that it’s a shameful and damning situation that, despite the curriculum being in place since September 2019, we still lack a complete set of textbooks, highlighting a grave inadequacy in our education system.
He observed that the shortage of textbooks is a stark illustration of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia NPP government’s systemic failure to prioritize and effectively manage basic education, further solidifying their poor track record in this critical sector.
Meanwhile, as part of his efforts to support education in his constituency, Hon. Apaak, through his Constituency Secretary, Mr. Richard Kazi, donated 732 mathematical sets to the Builsa South Education Director, which will be distributed to students preparing for the 2024 BECE exams.
This gesture aims to enhance the students’ learning experience and equip them with essential tools for success in their ongoing exams.
This is an activity that the MP has undertaken since 2017 when he was sworn in as an MP for Builsa South Constituency to date.
According to Dr. Apaak, this is his small way of alleviating the financial burden on parents who are already struggling with numerous excruciating hardships.
Nine Arrested For Exam Malpractice In Ongoing BECE
Furthermore, nine individuals have been apprehended and are facing allegations of examination malpractice amidst the ongoing Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
The arrests, which involved seven teachers, were made across multiple locations, including Bekwai in the Ashanti Region and Tema in the Greater Accra Region, as part of a crackdown on examination malpractices.
WAEC’s Head of Public Affairs, John Kapi, has acknowledged the arrests and reiterated the council’s commitment to enhancing security protocols.
“We also arrested one person at Nkoranza Senior High School. One person at Chemu Senior High School, Tema. And then two also in the Bono region. Also, there were two others, I will call them outsiders. They were not related to the examination but were trying to have access to the candidates”.
“So we have deployed a few more monitors to those flashpoints and we have also appealed to our partners in the security agencies to ensure that their presence is also felt in those areas to ensure that the people, you know, do not, continue with this kind of practice”.
John Kapi, WAEC’s Head of Public Affairs
John Kapi also mentioned that the seven teachers implicated will be subject to disciplinary proceedings by the Ghana Education Service, in addition to criminal charges related to the examination malpractice.
He clarified that since the teachers in question are not directly employed by WAEC, the council lacks the jurisdiction to impose disciplinary sanctions on them, and thus referred the matter to the Ghana Education Service for appropriate action.
Meanwhile, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, the Minister of Education, conducted a tour of various BECE examination centers in Accra, where he expressed his pleasure with the smooth execution of the exam process.
The 2024 BECE, which is scheduled to conclude on July 15, has drawn a total of 569,095 candidates, who are taking the exams at 2,123 centers across the country.
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