30 Years of BECE: WAEC must build new competence and leverage IT
Examination at the basic school level (BECE) enters its 30th year when the 2020 batch take their historic examination in September. The question is, have we as a nation managed the examination and achieved its aims?
After 30 years of BECE, it is sad to say we have a long way to go after years of stressing millions of candidates with examinations that produce book worms without practical skills and knowledge.
Today, the modalities of the examination have not seen a significant changed since the first BECE was written in 1990.
Education related testing in it self is expected to meet three essential qualities thus Content validity, Reliability and Objectivity not forgetting credibility of results.
If our examination for basic school graduates can be said to have gained some improvement, then their content validity must be very high. This means the exams must be able to evaluate what it intends to measure. Thus the questions put forth must get responses that show students have mastered concepts.
30 years of BECE and yet, WAEC cannot boast of an ultra modern examination hall where practical examination can be held using IT to power it. What is Ghana waiting for? WAEC must show leadership and start thinking think global.
Must students preparing for Senior High School education take one national exams to determine their fate? Certainly not, but this is the case.
BECE at 30 must be an exam that passes the reliability test but has the examination been consistent so that should we repeat the same exams later the grades obtained will stay within the same range? If examinations like the BECE end up being a mere guessing exercise for most of the candidates, then it will lack its reliability.
The exams looks more of an annual fashion event which only encourages our students to learn and pass the exams for the purposes of progression from Junior High School to Second Cycle institutions without any practical lessons.
In the 21st century subjects like Pre-Tech and ICT continue to be written on paper as though were some 30 years back into medieval Ghana.
We have at best deployed the BECE for the purposes of categorizing students into varied classes based on grades obtained rather than examining to evaluate practical knowledge and skills. Of what use for instance is mastering the algebra, transformation, and the like without their practical application? What is the the real knowledge acquired after years of being in school for BECE graduates?
Each time BECE is written we those who passed through the same system only see a carbon copy of ourselves with no improvement.
Though examinations must serve as double-edged swords for mobilising force in education which helps to test, over testing of candidates occurs in some instances when little attention is paid to content validation. Testing to examine for intended learning outcomes needs to be given a critical look.
To achieve any meaningful targets, results and successes, we look forward to what is the new curriculum to be released for JHS1-SHS by NACCA.
If it turns out to lack practical applications of knowledge to solving problems, life long learning qualities, subjects, topics and programmes that train an all round graduate with practical knowledge and skills then we shall be left behind as a nation in an ever changing and competitive world that is evolving around IT, AI and technology.
If well planned, Ghana’s BECE can become a competitive advantage for WAEC but the examining body needs to build new competences, gain new resources, get a 21st century leader who has a 22nd century thinking and mentality to lead the examining body to deliver world class examinations better than what it currently prides itself with.
A curriculum that helps students to become globally competitive is what we need for our education system to chart a new path for the BECE.
Technology, practical applications of knowledge to real-world problems, problem-solving skills tied into verbal and quantitative reasoning, IT in general, coding, programming in computing and artificial intelligence must play a key role in what is taught and learnt for the BECE in the next five years.
The above subjects if introduced into our curriculum properly and with the needed resourcing of schools would influence WAEC’s future examinations.
WAEC must as an examining body also invest into research and development to learn and innovate new and best practices that can be deployed to better give meaning to our current flawed and ever leaking examinations that produce Chew, Pass and Forget Graduates.
We do not have to wait another 30 years before we start making practical and innovative changes to BECE and WASSCE examinations.
Let us move from the paper and pen examination to one that is difficult to be manipulated, one that we can be proud of, one that exceed the current international standards. It all starts in the mind.
Source: Wisdom Hammond | Leadership expert, Educationist and Freelancer
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