Former Head of Public Affairs for Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Fiifi Boafo, is calling for an overhaul of pupil assessment at the basic level, indicating the status quo is unfair to some candidates from rural and remote communities.
He says the challenges faced by some pupils from disadvantaged areas do not give them the same level of exposure in terms of contact hours with teachers, technology and other teaching and learning materials, making it unfair to assess them with their colleagues in urban centres with access to quality education.
Recounting his experience as a son of a teacher, Mr. Boafo says the situation is so bad that in some communities, only one teacher is taking care of six classes, which affects both the teacher and the pupils, making it unfair for such children to be examined through the same examination as their counterparts.
Speaking on the commencement of the 2026 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) on TV3’s BigIssue segment on the NewDay morning show on Monday, May 4, 2026, Fiifi Boafo stressed the need to address the inequality in providing education for children at the basic level.
“One concern I have is the standard we use in assessing all these kids. If you look at some of the children, the opportunities they have, where they study, access to books, access to quality teachers, compared to a situation where you have class one to six, only one teacher teaching these children, and all of them are to be assessed on the same level.
“I think that we need as a country, to find a way of addressing the challenges and the very difficult situations children in rural communities find themselves because if you think about it, it’s unfair how we take these children through this same level of examination,” he stated.
A total of 620,141 candidates from 20,395 schools are sitting for this years BECE being organised by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).
The examination commenced on Monday, May 4, 2026, and will run till Monday, May 11, 2026, across all centres within the country.
BECE 2026: Over 620k candidates begin examination today as WAEC cautions against malpractices
