Ghanaian Language no longer a compulsory subject for 2024 BECE

Ghanaian Language will not be a compulsory subject for final year Junior High School (JHS) students to sit for this year’s edition of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) to be conducted mid-this year, a source has said.

According to the source, Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, English Language, Creative Arts, Computing, Career Technology and Religious and Moral Education are the new compulsory subjects for the national examination.

Subjects like Arabic, Ghanaian Language and French it said will be optional subjects for the upcoming Basic Education Certificate Examination thus 2024 BECE candidates will be made to choose one of the optional subjects.

The Minister for Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum remarking on the conduct of the 2024 Basic Education Certificate Examination to be based on a standards-based curriculum said the BECE will be different from the previous ones.

Commenting on whether subjects of the national examination would be reduced from the usual nine (9) to a minimum of five (5), the Education Minister said no such consideration has been taken by the Ministry in Charge of Education.

“Talking about BECE what I will say is that discussions are still ongoing, and finalisation will happen very soon but it is not accurate to say we are doing 5 subjects we have just moved to a standards-based curriculum ” Dr Adutwum said.

Amid the move to a standards-based curriculum, he said the type of questions for the upcoming 2024 Basic Education Certificate Examination to be administered by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) may be different.

“The type of questions may be different but the subjects are going to be the same. I think it is important for parents not to panic but they are to understand their children are still going to write BECE,” the Minister said in the interview.

In a related development, the Director-General of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA), Professor Edward Appiah says discussions to consider reduction of BECE subjects in future are ongoing.

In an interview with Education TV monitored by Thisterm.com, the NaCCA official said that currently there are no plans for the Ministry of Education to reduce subjects for the national examination to five (5) or whatever number.

“We are also receiving reports that Ghana is one of the few countries that do too many subjects in WASSCE and BECE and the conversation was can we reduce it? some said we should reduce it to five others said we should make it nine

But if there is going to be any reduction in the BECE subjects it is not even now and not next year. In this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) we are doing all the subjects,” the NaCCA official told Education TV.