Down Memory Lane: The case for basic education certificate flexibility

When the first private Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) takes off next month, I will certainly be one of those cheering this long-overdue development. It has been long in coming but, as the saying goes, ‘it is never too late to mend’.

The Junior Graphic’s issue of January 21 reported that the maiden BECE for private candidates will be held from February 16 to 20, at 11 centres nationwide.  

In November 2013, when the gratifying news of a resit opportunity for basic school certificate failures was announced by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), it was stated that it would be “for candidates who have completed nine years of basic education.”  

However, the Junior Graphic story refers to “private”, “those resitting” and “first-time” candidates; also, that the age for first-time candidates has been revised from 18 to 16, “to enable more candidates to write the exam”. Thus, it appears that the 2013 decision has been amended to be more flexible, to include drop-outs and this is highly commendable.

The case for giving basic school drop-outs and those who fail their final examination the opportunity to take the exam again had been building up. Ghana replaced what was known as the Middle School Leaving Certificate (MSLC) with the BECE and a lot of other reforms have taken place in the education sector since 1987 so maybe that is what also influenced this very welcome flexibility. 

As indicated, long before the 2013 announcement, some of us had expressed concern at various times about the unfairness of disallowing a second chance at the basic level. One example was the following ‘Native Daughter’ piece published nearly three decades ago, as the highlighted paragraphs show.

Abridged column from The Mirror of Saturday, September 7, 1985:

Of bells and cassava

I wonder what my life would be like if I could not read and write. I can imagine myself in a lot of deprived situations that I could bear, but I can’t imagine what life would be like without reading and writing.

Statistics about Ghana’s unlettered are hard to come by. One publication going by 1969/70 figures puts the number of illiterates in Ghana at 75-80 per cent of the population. 

To say that the rate of a country’s development depends on the literacy rate is perhaps, to state the obvious. A UNESCO publication sums it up very neatly: “The world map of poverty is also the world map of illiteracy. The illiterate are desperately poor, hungry, sick, abused and powerless.”

Here in Ghana, in the Nkrumah period, a massive literacy drive was the foundation of the Mass Education Campaign. People were taught to read and write as well as educated on civics and self-improvement methods.

According to the Director of the Department of Community Development, Mr K.A. P. Brown, in the Mass Education era, every year, as many as 20,000 people learned to read and write. This number has now dropped to about 3,000 a year because of financial and other constraints. 

The success of the Mass Education Campaign was due to the availability of funds, equipment and personnel, backed by a sustained attack. While the programme sought to provide every child with primary schooling, adults were in turn encouraged to attend evening classes; and there were also literacy classes at some work places for illiterate employees.  

The Department of Community Development is currently working on another programme to increase the rate of literacy in the country. 

While the Department waits for funds for the project, I wish the Ministry of Education would do something about middle school drop-outs.

It is ironic that although the Middle School Leaving Certificate is the basic, our educational system does not give drop-outs and others a chance to acquire the certificate outside the formal school system. One can study with the Workers College for Ordinary and Advanced Levels or even a university degree, but there’s no way one can get a MSLC without going through a school system.

It would serve a very useful purpose if a programme to give primary and middle school drop-outs, a second chance could be instituted. Girls especially, would benefit a lot from such a programme.

We who are fortunate to be counted among the literate statistics take our literacy so much for granted, like breathing. How many of us ever pause to imagine a life without reading and writing, a life of alphabet blindness?

This is not to imply that one is less a human being for being unlettered; neither is it to say that the unlettered have no wisdom. But there is such a wealth of knowledge that is denied the unlettered; so much hidden from them; so many doors closed to them.

I hope that the government can squeeze some money from somewhere for another mass literacy campaign to start, to give opportunity to the too many Ghanaians who so wistfully describe themselves as “One of those who didn’t hear the school bell when it was being rung. I was too busy planting cassava.”

Postscript:

Congratulations to the Ghana National Committee of WAEC, the Council itself and the Ministry of Education for this remarkable, realistic initiative. I hope that there will be adequate, regular publicity about it to enable all those who need it to make use of this wonderful opening.

What is not very clear is whether adults who have not gone through formal schooling but want to study at home and sit the exam can also benefit from the private BECE. 

If they are not included, I pray that sooner than later the opportunity will also be extended to interested adults, the ‘cassava-planters’.  

Periodically, there are amazing news reports about ambitious, courageous adults in Ghana and elsewhere going back to, or starting, basic school. In their determination to acquire a basic school qualification, some of them even sit in classrooms with their children and grandchildren.  

Shouldn’t WAEC extend the laudable flexibility to mature private candidates as well?  Possibly, Ghana can become a trailblazer in this!

Hopefully, in the near future, this will be the next good news from the WAEC – or confirmation that this category is already catered for in the innovation and they will no longer have to wear school uniforms and share desks with their children and grandchildren.  

(ajoayeboahafari@yahoo.com)