Free SHS: BECE is no more competitive, teachers need not work hard

BECE is no more competitive and we all know it. Today, the dreaded BECE is no longer relevant for the SHS Admissions. Better still, it has lost a great deal of its importance because a poor performance can land a bad student in big schools like Achimota, Presec, and Aburi Girls. In the past, this was highly impossible.

We urge private SHS and remedial schools to expand their facilities quickly because the influx of bad grade students into SHS will reflect in WASSCE 2020 results and those seeking remedial schools will stretch their current facilities if the failure rate soars up.

READ: BECE/WASSCE 2020: Secrets to ANSWERING essay questions

Free SHS has indirectly lowered the seriousness many teachers attach to preparing students for the BECE exams. For the fact that one needs not to work extra hard, to secure admission teachers are relaxing and even so because pupils and students today are not serious. Porous teacher performance and lack of motivation to push students hard to excel has led to student negligence when it comes to their books.

READ: WASSCE 2020: The final minute preparation strategies

Hence today, students are not challenged to work hard. Why struggle to make grades when just a little effort could land you admission into SHS they ask.

Teachers have realized a fall in students’ commitment towards academic excellence hence they themselves need not work hard. They cannot keep pouring water on stones when they know the candidates are lazy and the outcome will be adverse. Teachers are motivated when students are committed and hence they will sacrifice all they can to help such students.

Competition among schools is down because of the Free SHS. In the days when a school’s performance was a marketing tool for both public and private schools, public schools were struggling to compete even with trained teachers at their disposal.

Free SHSs Self Placement Cause of Poor Grade Students in SHS

Today, many parents with children in private schools are enrolling their wards in public basic schools for the BECE. This has even become more attractive because candidates from public schools are given a better quota and are favoured when placements are done. This is one of the reasons why a student with aggregate 15 from a public school will gain admission to Presec Legon yet a student with aggregate 8 from a private school will struggle for that same slot, course, and school. Today schools are not challenged to set academic records and private schools are becoming very unattractive.

In the past many who opted for private JHS  did so because students were making good grades and gaining admission to the best schools, this trend is changing with the new Free SHS policy.

Projected Effect of Free SHS on 2020 University Admissions

BECE is no more competitive, where your investment is, that is where your heart is. Today, many parents are not bothered about the excellent academic performance they required in the past or have lowered the demand. In the past, parents tell their children to pass BECE or no secondary education, today they can’t use that to coax lazy children to learn because they will not pay the fees themselves. The new trend is because they (parents) will not “waste their money paying fees” for their wards.

Many parents whose wards are BECE candidates have gone to ‘sleep’ because they did not even pay their exam fees. Many more will go into “comma” when their children start benefiting from Free SHS. For those whose children are attending basic school for free, they are already seemingly free from paying fees and would agree with this assertion.

The BECE is no more competitive because of all the above and it has led to the current reality that results don’t matter anymore.

Today at the BECE, even those who fail to gain admissions due to bad performance go through self-placement to find their way there. BECE Candidates Are Excited Because There is No Cut-Off Point for  Free SHS.

Read: Over 27000 BECE Graduates did not qualify for SHS Placement 

If we do not put in place measures to sieve candidates and make free SHS not free for all, the end results may be bitter and posterity will be mad at us.

Improve on free SHS implementation, seek for efficiency and quality before students enter SHS. Let spend on those who pass and not everyone, let the competition come, bring back the cut-off point. BECE is no more competitive and we cannot deny the truth.

Source: NewsGhana24.com |Wisdom Hammond