<<Print>>

The web of lies engaged in by President John Dramani Mahama and the National Democratic Congress, in the run up to the December 2012 elections, in painting a rosy picture of the pass rates of pupils who wrote the 2012 Basic Education Certificate Examination has been exposed by the Ghana Education Service. It is recalled that Mahama�s caretaker government, reeling under the soaring popularity of Nana Akufo-Addo�s free SHS policy and the growing failure rates of pupils who sat for the BECE under the NDC, led to the NDC government stating that 99.6% of students had passed the BECE in 2012. The Ghana Education Service, in the 24th September 2012 edition of the Daily Graphic, explained that out of the 376,859 candidates who sat the BECE, 375,258, representing 99.6%, passed the examination and as such qualified for placement into Senior High Schools and Technical and Vocational Institutions. This revelation by the GES, barely three months to the December 2012 election, was capitalised upon by NDC government functionaries and communicators, who said that was a proof of an unprecedented pass rate never witnessed in the annals of Ghana�s history. WAEC statistics had shown that in 1998, 60.36% of students passed the BECE. In 2008, this had increased to 62.16%. From 2009 to 2011, the BECE pass rates had declined, from 50.21% in 2009, 49.12% in 2010 and 46.93% in 2011. �To say the least, from 46.93% to 99.6% the following year is mightily exceptional,� NDC communicators were heard saying. However, a Ghanaian Times publication of Tuesday, October 1, 2013, with the headline �182,000 can�t get schools�. They failed in core subjects� has revealed that the pass rate of 2012 was not 99.6% as the NDC said on its campaign platform but was merely propaganda and lies aimed at deceiving the Ghanaian public. George Atta-Boateng, the Acting Director of the Computerized School Selection and Placement System revealed that 245,143 out of the 376,859 who sat the BECE were qualified to be placed. This represents some 65% of students who sat the examination. According to Mr Atta-Boateng, 210,000 out of the 392,000 who sat for the 2013 examination passed representing some 53.5% of students who sat the examination. The paper also reported that 182,000 students failed all core subjects and were ineligible to be placed. This development has led political pundits to come to the conclusion that John Mahama and his NDC government in their attempt to win political power, lied about the pass rates of the BECE. �We were told that in 2012, 99.6% of candidates who sat for the BECE passed. Now we are being told that it was 65% in 2012 by the CSPSS Director. Now the standards of education have fallen so low that only 53.5% passed the BECE this time around. What happened in just one year where we supposedly had 99.6% of students passing to end up a year later at only 53.5% passing?� a bemused analyst asked.