In almost all spheres of life, when progress and achievements come to be measured, there are always some facilitating factors or enhancers, both external and or internal that need to be counted.

With a whopping 570,461 candidates writing the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) this year, 2024, one may be looking for factors that have encouraged hopes to this height. Look no further. Free SHS policy could be one such factor.

The impressive numbers, one understands, are coming from 19,506 schools across the country while the examinations are being written at 2,123 centres dotted around Ghana.

And so, one sees the West African Examination Council’s (WAEC) recent announcement confirming the number of candidates writing the examination as a resounding victory for the policy of free SHS.  Beneficiary parents and their wards, no doubt, have found this enabler something to aspire to, with the gateway being passing the BECE.

The total number of candidates is not only impressive but also humbling. Hopes seem to be rising each year for those who in times past may not have been able to get through schooling, more so to cross the SHS barrier due to financial difficulties. 

One can justifiably conjecture therefore that with the free SHS policy still in place, prospective candidates are just eager to acquire the “entry” qualifications to access the policy. One feels excited and encouraged that the basic game changer in free SHS is what one is seeing from the statistics put out by WAEC in connection with this year’s BECE. 

Female candidates

My greatest excitement is learning that out of the total number registered for this year, the number of female participants outnumbered the male participants by over 100,000. 

While 282,648 male candidates were presented this year, impressively, 386,447 female candidates also took the examination. The numbers from private candidates tilted a bit with 735 males over 631 females registering for the examination. 

That however is not too much of a worry because if well analysed, one could even argue in favour of female candidates and say that because of their excellence in previous years, there could not have been many of them going as individual private candidates. Unfortunately, there are no available statistics to back any claim.

A simple analysis of the overall increase in figures for BECE, even to a lame person outside the realms of the education system, however, points to some obvious encouragements, one of them being the free SHS system already in place. After all, who does not want to go through BECE to also have the opportunity for free SHS? Previously, many out of that number would have truncated schooling at the basic level due to financial constraints.

The other point that impresses me so much is the number of girls who registered to write the examination. In times past and even as recently as 2021 and soon after the heights of COVID-19, the news was that an alarming number of teenage girls were dropping out of school due to teenage pregnancy. 

These girls, it was made known at the time, had little to look forward to in terms of their future education so once they encountered “accidental” pregnancies during the period of staying at home, they were not enthused to get back to the classroom once Covid-19 abated.

Financial difficulties aside, their fear included stigmatisation in their communities and teases from schoolmates calling them “mothers”. The other worry for them was someone to care for their babies should they return to the classroom.

To mitigate all that and get more girls who have teenage pregnancies back to school, the Ghana Education Service (GES) conducted research into how girls could be encouraged to stay or return to school after pregnancy. Consequently, a unit was set up to assist those who fell victim to school dropouts. 

The GES support unit has sensitised many girls to embrace the opportunities presented by staying in the classroom. It is the best access to acquiring knowledge and a tool for job prospects whether as entrepreneurs or as employees. The knowledge acquired by staying in school also gives one easy control of one’s own future including that of their family.

For now and going forward, one only hopes and prays that the impressive enrolment of girls at the basic school level and hence BECE will translate into successes that will get an equally impressive number into senior high school and beyond. 

As we encourage our girls to do even better than what they are doing now, we also wish them the best in the educational journey they have set for themselves. May Dr. Kwegyir Aggrey’s over-used adage that when you educate a woman, you educate not only an individual but a whole community, come to pass for the 2024 BECE female candidates. 

That is my bias.

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The writer can be contacted via email at vickywirekoandoh@yahoo.com