Students Getting Ready For Final Exams

In Ghanaian educational system, you start school from nursery. After your nursery education, you go to kindergarten. From kindergarten, you go to Primary school where you do class one(1) to class(6). From class 6, you move to Junior High School (J.H.S.) which is for three(3) years. From Nursery school to JHS is regarded as Basic School here in Ghana.

From JHS, you write the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and if you attain a pass mark, you go to the Senior High School (SHS). SHS lasts for three(3) years and then you write the West African Secondary School Certification Examination (WASSCE) and you apply to the university with that. After SHS, the next step is to go to a tertiary education. With tertiary education being very expensive, a lot of people stop their schooling there. Those who continue choose whether to go to the university, teacher training or nurses training school.

After school, there is a semi-compulsory National Service Scheme (NSS) where tertiary graduates do a one(1) year service for the nation and get paid. There is a computerised system that places graduates across different public/private open vacancies to work for a year for an allowance. If you are retained wherever you did your SE, you can start your work life from there. Very few get retained and so start looking for jobs immediately after the NSS.

This year's WASSCE ended on Tuesday, 4th of June 2019. On Monday 10th of June 2019, the BECE begins across all centres in Ghana and will continue until Friday the 14th of June, 2019. The girl in the photo is a BECE candidate who is getting ready to start the exams on Monday. This is the first major examination in her schooling and failing/passing could shape her life. I just want to wish her the very best in her exams.