BECE results worst in 13 yrs, DI calls for urgent action

Figures from the West African Examinations Council show that the pass-rate of students who sat for the Basic Education Certificate Examination has been on a constant downward decline since 2009. In sum, out of the total number of 1,121,817 students who sat for the BECE in the past three years, 574,688 failed to achieve the pass mark.

This means that more than half a million young people, with an average age of 15 years,  have been thrown onto the streets with no employable skills in the past three years alone.

This is a clear indication of a dangerous trend in falling standards in education, especially at the most important stage of a child’s formative years, the basic education level.

The Danquah Institute is, therefore, calling on Government to pay attention to this serious crisis in the quality of education at the basic level and take urgent, decisive and sustainable action to arrest this negative development.

We are making this call because, otherwise, we fear that, if this trend of high failure rate continued, the nation risked banishing about half of its young generation to lurching on the fringes of society, a phenomenon that could have dangerous national security ramifications for Ghana in the near future.

The 2011 results of BECE students have been the worst in 13 years, using 1998 as the base year, with 46.93% of students achieving a pass rate and thus being eligible for placement into Senior High Schools. Out of the 375,280 students who sat for the 2011 examination, only 176,128 passed their examinations with the fate of 199,152 students now doomed to a grim future of uncertainties.

In 2010, 350,888 students sat for the examination. 172,359 of them, representing 49.12%, achieved a pass rate. That was worse than the 2009 pass rate of 50.21%, confirming the worrying trend of worsening results.

The 2008 batch of BECE students performed comparatively better than 2007 and 2009, with 210,282 students out of the 338,292 who sat the examination scoring between aggregates six and 30, thus meeting the requirements for placement into second-cycle schools under the Computerised Schools Selection and Placement System. This represents a percentage pass rate of 62.16%.

Figures from the WAEC reveal that 61.28% of students, passed the 2007 BECE examination.

While the average pass rate in the last 3 years, under the National Democratic Congress, has fallen by more than 12 percentage points to 48.75% the New Patriotic Party, in its 8 years, achieved an average pass rate of 61.25% for students who sat the BECE examination. 2001, the first year of President J A Kufuor, represented the lowest point of BECE results under the NPP’s tenure with 60.40% of students achieving a pass rate.

These sudden reversal of students' performance, resulting in a peculiar constant decline in standards since 2009 calls for urgent, detailed analysis. It signifies a crisis in education at the basic level that requires urgent and deliberate attention from Government.

The recent falling standards may also be measured against policy decisions taken by the current administration. What has been the impact on teaching and learning from agitations and strike actions by teachers? What about reduction in real terms in important social interventions in education, such as the slashing by 6.79% of the Capitation Grant and BECE subsidy in the 2011 budget from GH¢35.5m to GH¢33m?

There has also been a notable reduction in the percentage of GDP spent on education in recent years, against the natural increases in student population. In 2010, Government spent 7.93% of GDP (not the rebased figure) on education, declining in 2011 to 7.57%.

As an earlier report in the beginning of the year from the Danquah Institute warned, the decision of Government to slash funding in key education areas sent a disturbing signal indicative of a gradual return to the situation of negligible funding witnessed over ten years ago, where in 2000, for example, only 4.4% of Ghana's GDP was spent on education. By 2007, this had increased gradually to 9.1% GDP.

This is no way to preparing the nation’s children for the future. To fail our children is the worst crime that any government can commit against a nation’s future. The destiny of Ghana, as a peaceful, prosperous and free society can only be realized if we make the quality of education we offer to every Ghanaian child a national priority.

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