Why topping your class may not earn the best BECE grade -WAEC
WAEC says the Basic Education Certificate Examination ranks candidates against more than 620,000 students nationwide, not their classmates, after some parents questioned this year's results.
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) says students who excel in school do not automatically achieve the highest grades in Ghana's Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), because candidates are assessed against hundreds of thousands of peers nationwide rather than classmates.
The explanation comes after questions were raised by some parents and private schools over this year's BECE results, with concerns that some high-performing students had received lower grades than expected.
Speaking on Joy FM on Wednesday, WAEC's Head of Public Affairs, John Kapi, said the examination uses a norm-referenced grading system in which candidates are ranked according to their performance within the national cohort.
More than 620,000 pupils sat this year's BECE.
Mr Kapi said many parents mistakenly compare their children's examination results with their performance in school, where they compete against only a small number of classmates.
"A student may consistently score 90% in a class of 40 and finish first, but in the BECE that same student is competing with more than 620,000 candidates, many of whom may perform equally well or even better," he said.
He said this meant that leading a class did not necessarily translate into the highest grade in a national examination.
National competition
According to WAEC, classroom assessments measure performance within an individual school, while the BECE is designed to compare candidates across the country.
Mr Kapi said understanding that distinction would help explain why some students who perform strongly throughout the academic year may not obtain the top grades in the final examination.
His comments follow concerns raised by the Ghana National Association of Private Schools, which questioned aspects of the 2026 BECE results and called for greater clarity on the grading process.
WAEC has maintained that the examination results were produced using established assessment procedures and has encouraged parents and schools to understand how the national grading system operates before drawing conclusions about individual performance.