21 BECE Candidates Sacked After Headmaster ‘chopped’ Their Registration Fees

Twenty-one Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates were sacked from the examination centre at Mankessim in the Central Region after their headmaster failed to register them to write the exams after collecting their examination registration fees.

The proprietor and headteacher of the New Vision Preparatory School reportedly gave the students fake index numbers that were not in the records of the examination conducting body of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).

At the time they were sacked on Monday, August 7, 2023, the headteacher was nowhere to be found.

Information gathered indicates that the affected students paid GH₵400 each, except for one who paid GH₵600 cedis due to registering late with the school.

Some angry parents revealed that this was not the first time such an incident had happened.

They recounted an instance some years back where the father of the current proprietor of the school ran away with the registration fees of the candidates without registering them for the examinations.

This is the second school where such an incident has been recorded this year within three days of the examination, bringing the total number of affected students to 23.

Two BECE candidates of the Gomoa Buduatta DA Junior High School, also in the Central Region, were unable to write the first paper of the BECE after their headmaster allegedly squandered their fees.

The angry parents who rushed into the examination centre threatened to take all necessary measures to retrieve their money from the school authorities.

The parents of the candidates who were affected have reported the incident to the police for appropriate actions to be taken.

In a related development, the minister of education has directed the Ghana Education Service (GES) to sanction the headmaster of Buduatta DA Junior High School.

Reacting to the issue, the Education MinistercDr Yaw Osei Adutwum, said the headteacher’s action could be termed as extortion.

He added that no parent is required to pay for the examination registration.

“WAEC exams is now free under Free Senior High School, BECE and WASSCE is free. The headmaster might have extorted the parents of these people. I will meet WAEC on it.

“Also, the Ghana Education Service will deal with him, we will ask him why he took the money because we pay WAEC directly despite the economic challenges, and nobody is supposed to pay. His matter is a very serious one,” the minister said.