A member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) National Communications Team, Alfred Kojo Thompson, has expressed concern over the conditions under which candidates are prepared for the 2026 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), citing persistent power outages across parts of the country.
Speaking on Badwam on Adom TV, he said, many candidates were forced to study in darkness during periods of “dumsor,” a situation he described as unfair and discouraging for students at such a critical stage of their academic journey.
He argued that the disruptions significantly affected evening study routines, which are essential for exam preparation.
A total of 620,141 candidates from 20,395 schools are sitting for this year’s BECE, which commenced today.
The figure represents a 2.7 percent increase from last year and includes 304,349 boys and 315,792 girls.
The exams are being conducted at 2,303 centres nationwide, supervised by an equal number of supervisors, supported by 2,070 assistant supervisors and 21,791 invigilators.
Each candidate is expected to sit for 11 subjects.
Ghana has in recent times experienced intermittent power outages, largely attributed to faulty and overloaded transformers, as well as a reported fire incident at Akosombo, which led to a significant loss in power generation capacity estimated at close to 1,000 megawatts.
Mr Thompson suggested that under such challenging circumstances, candidates may have to rely not only on their preparation but also on faith to succeed.
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