GES cautions against charging unauthorized 2025 BECE registration fees

The Ghana Education Service (GES) has taken notice of allegations on social media that some Heads of Basic schools are imposing unauthorized 2025 BECE registration fees on final-year students.

Management wishes to emphasize that these fees are unauthorized, and all Heads are advised to cease this practice immediately. Regional Directors are instructed to alert District Directors to monitor the situation and caution all Heads of Basic schools.

Any Head who has collected such unauthorized fees is required to refund the monies promptly. Failure to comply will result in sanctions.

Heads of Basic schools are reminded that late registration of candidates will not be permitted. Therefore, all eligible candidates must be registered within the stipulated registration period set by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).

The general public is informed to take note. The press release signed by CASSANDRA TWUM AMPOFO, HEAD, PUBLIC RELATIONS UNIT did not give further details on what amount is being charged and whether the allegations on social media are accurate.

Unfortunatel, the GES did not clearly indicated what constitutes unauthorized 2025 BECE registration fees.

However, it is important to indicate the call for heads not to charge unauthorised BECE fees is directed to public Junior High Schools. That said, it is important for the general public especially parents whose wards are in public basic schools and in JHS3 for that matter, to note that:

1. The goverment does not provide public schools money to take professional passport pictures for processing the registration of students.
2. The government does not provide public schools with funds to print out the registration documents.
3. No internet data is provided to public schools for the essential online registration and completion of the processes.
4. Transportation cost when it comes to sending the hard copies of files to the district exam offices is another cost.
5. At the district exam offices, officers often have a submission book for schools to sign when they submit. The submission comes with schools paying. This has become a compulsory ritual and public school officers who submit the files must pay for submission.
6. Someone must make data entries especially after school hours and this person has to be compensated.
7. The registration forms have to be printed just as the school selection booklets which often come in their soft copy form.

The big question is, does the GES or the MoE provide schools funds for these extra expenses? If not, then the letter and the unauthorised fee caution is not worth the attention of the public. Parents need to note that, since the above 7 important expenses cost money to take care of and the government does not provide them with financial resources for them, schools must ask parents to pay for these extra expenses through the charging of so-called unauthorised fees. Heads and teachers of public schools need to think outside the box to raise the needed money for such expenses and parents must pay for it.

These are just some of the few expenses public schools have to take care of and the question is, who must pay for these? Surely parents must pay and heads must transfer this cost to parents apart from the exam fee the goverment fully taken care of.

READ: Download Actual 2024 BECE Mock Questions and Answers

Currently the GES and WAEC have not released any fees to be paid by private BECE candidates.

What I want to understand is that is there an approved fee for BECE registration?

How much is it if there is?

If there isn’t any thing as registration fee for BECE then it should be clearly stated by GES to avoid any ambiguity.