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The government has indicated it will hold the West African Examination Council (WAEC) for any form of exam malpractices in this year’s Basic Education Certification Examination (BECE).

Deputy Education Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa said though the government respects the assurances given by WAEC to ensure the 2016 BECE is devoid of leakage, it will not hesitate to hold the examination body accountable in the event it happens.

Starting today, June 13, 2016, at least 461, 013 candidates are expected to sit for this year’s BECE from 14, 267 public and private junior high schools. The candidates are made up of 239, 963 males and 221, 050 females. They would be supervised by at least 15, 695 invigilators.

WAEC said it has put in place some stringent measures which include flying of question papers to examination centres to avoid leakage of the questions in this year’s exams. These measures come in the wake of widespread leakages in the 2015 BECE and 2016 West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in the country.

Addressing a congregation at the Regional Maritime University, Mr Ablakwa said “The West African Examination Council assures us that this time they are working more closely with our security agencies to guarantee an incident-free and leakage free BECE exams.”

“We have told the West African Examination Council,” he said, “that we hold them to their promise and we hope that they don’t disappoint.” Meanwhile, in the Volta Region, the Sashieme Basic School recorded its worst performance in the 2015 BECE in the Keta Municipality. The school scored zero percent.

This means that none of the candidates who sat for the exams got between aggregate six and aggregate 30 despite having the best infrastructure in the municipality. Speaking to Joy news, the headmaster of the school expressed worry about the school’s performance.“I was surprised that my school got zero percent this time. They [pupils] were aiming at exam malpractice to get ‘apor’ so they disrespected the teachers,” he lamented.“I organize extra classes for them they fail to turn up,” he added.

The Municipal Education Director, Raphael Kojo Kwashie blamed the attitude of the candidates for the poor performance of the school.“We have adequate infrastructure, the teachers are also adequate, and there is school feeding programme here. So why then the poor performance?” he asked.

“They were very boisterous, they were smoking weed and they were assaulting teachers. And then we realized that that could be the reason for the poor performance,” he said.But the current barge of final year students is promising to do better.

Speaking to Joy news, one of the candidates said “As for our barge we are trying to change the zero percent to hundred percent.”Another candidate also added, “I will make sure that I will read my books and learn hard.”

The Keta Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Sylvester Tornyeva is confident the current barge of candidates will do well.