The entire nation is patiently waiting for three major changes that will affect the conduct of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) in Ghana. These changes are inevitable, and WAEC has little or no control over them.
The Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ministry of Education (MoE) must also start planning how to communicate the new changes that will affect the conduct of the BECE and WASSCE in 2027. The background information provided below is necessary for readers to appreciate the shift that will take place.
The Transition to the Common Core Curriculum
In 2019, Ghana moved away from the old curriculum and introduced what came to be known as the ‘Common Core Programme’; by 2021, it had introduced the Junior High School version of the same curriculum. The Basic 7 to 9 curriculum had an extended version called Grade 10, which was supposed to be taught in the current SHS1 in our Senior High Schools.
These changes, which were introduced at the pre-senior high school level, affected not only teachers and schools but also students. It challenged educators and their students to shift from rote learning to critical thinking and reasoning so that questions are set to examine students’ ability to apply knowledge to solving real-world problems.
Impact on BECE and Question Modalities
These changes finally led to the new BECE exam question modalities. This was reflected in the way WAEC set the 2024 and 2025 BECE questions, resulting in a massive shift in question structure and style. While the new curriculum has not been fully implemented, there is a big change coming again. For instance, the French language is supposed to have an oral aspect, yet it has remained a written exam with no real orals.
The First Common Core WASSCE in 2027
The new Common Core Curriculum produced its first BECE graduates in 2024. These candidates will be in year three in the 2026/2027 academic year. This means that the same candidates will be the first batch of WASSCE students to be examined with questions based on the new Common Core Curriculum. These students have been introduced to the Common Core Curriculum from Grade 6 and will now sit the first-ever Common Core Curriculum standard WASSCE in 2027.
The Retirement of the Old WASSCE Curriculum
Coincidentally, WAEC has also disclosed that the 2026 WASSCE will be the last to be administered to school candidates based on the old curriculum. This will bring to an end over a decade of existence and use of the old secondary school syllabus.
That said, WAEC will, however, continue to administer private WASSCE based on the old curriculum for a period of four years, after which the curriculum will be retired forever. What this means is that any student who studied and sat for the WASSCE under the old curriculum and still wants to resit the examination must sit and pass the exam before the end of 2030.
The Introduction of the Beacon of Light for BECE
The third major change that will take place relates more to the BECE. In 2025, the Ministry of Education approved for use the Beacon of Light, a literature reader for the Junior High School, leading to the retiring of the famous Cockcrow literature book introduced at the Junior High School level in 2010.
In a related development, the Ministry of Education has disclosed that 2026 BECE candidates will choose schools after the release of the BECE results by WAEC. This is a shift from the usual practice with the hope that, it will help deal with many of the placement-related challenges.
READ: Buy Likely WASSCE 2026 Topic Based Questions with Answers
The book was introduced a year late, and it also took close to a year for the book to hit the market. By the time this book hit the market, the first batch of Junior High School candidates who would be examined with it at the BECE level were in Basic 7 – Term 3. These students are currently in Grade 8 and will sit the BECE in 2027. They will be the first batch of students to be examined with the Beacon of Light for the BECE English Language Literature section.
These three changes are not isolated and not out of the blue. Teachers, parents, students, and general education stakeholders are expected to have a lot to say about these inevitable changes outlined in this post.
The Ghana Education News Editorial Team is a specialized collective of education researchers, journalists, and policy analysts dedicated to providing high-fidelity reporting on the Ghanaian academic landscape. Serving as a primary bridge between governing bodies—including the Ghana Education Service (GES) and WAEC—and the public, the team leverages over a decade of combined experience to serve students, parents, and educators nationwide.
Lead Architect & Editor-in-Chief
The team is led by Wisdom Kojo Eli Hammond, a distinguished Ghanaian Edu-Tech Entrepreneur, AI Solutions Developer, and Product Architect with over 25 years of cross-disciplinary experience in education, finance, and digital media. Wisdom is the visionary force behind SkulManager, Ghana’s premier school management ecosystem, and the Lead Consultant at Education-News Consult.
A self-taught innovator, professional Web Designer, and regular columnist on GhanaWeb, Wisdom engineered SkulManager.com as the only platform strictly tailored to the GES Curriculum. His technical leadership has redefined educational assessment through a Hybrid Marking Ecosystem, pioneering the BECE and WASSCE Home Mock services—a unique fusion of WAEC-trained human examiners and advanced AI marking engines operational since 2022.
Wisdom’s 360-degree view of institutional challenges is grounded in his tenure as College President and Lecturer at Pinnacle College (Achimota), as well as his background as a school administrator and accountant. He is a dedicated lifelong learner currently advancing his studies at the Accra Institute of Technology (AIT), with academic ties to the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA).
An accomplished author, his works include Returnees of the Dead Forest (UK Published), Simplified Beacon of Light (850+ Q&A), and The Leader in Me. A foundational pillar of the award-winning NGO Human Rights Reporters Ghana (HRRG), Wisdom is committed to building intelligent systems that solve societal problems and prepare the next generation of Ghanaian students for a digital future.
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