He expressed worry about previous year’s examination malpractices which affected the reputation of the country, saying the Ministry had collaborated with the West African Examination Council to curtail any practices that would derailed the conduct of the exams.

  Prof Yankah gave the advised when he together with team toured some selected school in Accra to monitor the first day of the examination.

  The team included Prof Kwesi Opoku-Amankwah, Acting Director-General of the Ghana Education Service and Cynthia Bosumtwi-Sam, Acting Deputy Director, GES in charge of Basic Education.

 The school centres the team visited included Kanda Cluster of Schools, Achimota Basic and Preparatory school, Anunmle Junior High School and Accra High School.

 The Minister said this year’s BECE would usher the candidates into the free Senior High School, and urged them to study hard and pass well for the exams because of the country’s high expectation about the programme.

 He commended WAEC for instituting measures to ensure that last year’s exams was without examination leakages and was optimistic that the trend would continue for both citizenry and international body’s to have confidence in the institutions.

 The Minister said he was satisfied with the turn of event and expressed concern about the late arrival of materials in some schools, which delayed the start of the first paper, since the Ministry was very sensitive about punctuality.

 According to Mr Angelbert Mawudoku, the Supervisor at Kanda Cluster of Schools, a total of 306 candidates comprising of eight schools were writing the exams in the school, while at the Accra High School centre, 288 candidates comprising of 10 schools were writing the examinations.

 Also at the Achimota Basic School Compound ‘A’, 159 candidates were sitting for the examinations with four schools without absentees, whilst at the Achimota Basic School Compound ‘C’, seven schools totalling 251 candidates were writing for the paper with one special person.

 At the Achimota Preparatory School, 201 candidates who comprised of six schools were sitting for the Examination, while at the Anunmle Junior School, six schools totalling 184 were writing the examination.

 Mr Paul Kagbey, Supervisor at Achimota Basic School Compound ‘C’ urged the candidates to comply with examination rules to avoid sanctions.

 This year, a total number of 468,053 students from 15,185 schools are writing the exams across the country with English Language and Religious and Moral Education as the first paper.

 The examination is expected to end on Friday June 9.