Some 13,121 final year candidates from 274 public and private junior high schools in the Tema Metropolis and Ashaiman Municipality on Monday started writing the 2009 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
The five-day examination started with the English language and Religious and Moral Education (RME) papers.
Mrs Victoria Opoku, Tema Metropolitan Education Director, told the Ghana News Agency that the candidates were made up of 6,454 boys and 6,692 girls.
Mrs Opoku, who described the examination atmosphere in the centres as smooth, said she was impressed with the turn out and comportment of candidates, invigilators and supervisors.
She commended the supervisors for starting the examination on time and appealed to them to stick to the rules of the West Africa Examination Council (WEAC) throughout the examination period.
Some centres visited confirmed that the examination took off smoothly with few absentees and no recorded incident in the Tema Metropolis.
At Twedaase JHS, which is hosting three schools, three absentees including one deceased boy were recorded out of the 277 registered candidates.
Some 517 candidates from eight schools sat for the examination at the two centres created at the Chemu Senior High School which has 18 invigilators, two assistant supervisors and two supervisors.
The centres recorded two absentees, a girl and a boy for centres 'A' and 'B'.
Our Lady of Mercy (OLAM) SHS which is hosting four schools had all the 255 registered candidates, 131 girls and 124 boys, present.
One absentee was recorded out of 793 registered candidates from 11 schools at the three centres at the Tema SHS.