He said this would ensure that candidates would be able to enter Senior High School (SHS) and enjoy the free SHS programme without having any problems about the cancellation of their results because of malpractices.

Mr Nsowah, who was speaking to the Junior Graphic in an interview, said it was sad that some community and opinion leaders sometimes tended to disapprove of the strict and rigid measures put in place by school heads to prevent cheating during the examination.

“Some communities do not like the strict measures put in place by heads. You hear them saying that we do not like this headmaster or we do not like that headmaster. This is because the headmaster is principled and will not allow cheating,” he said.

Mr Nsowah indicated that heads had been told to be strict because if there was evidence of cheating in a school, their positions would be on the line.

“If you cannot supervise an examination in your school, then you are not qualified to be head of the school. But some communities put pressure on them to allow the children to cheat,” he said.

The chairman warned that if communities did not stop putting pressure on school heads, it could lead to the cancellation of the results of the candidates in the school and that would affect them as the students would sometimes be banned for some years.

To help children excel in the examination, he said community leaders should support schools to organise extra classes for their children to enable them to prepare well for the BECE so that they do not cheat or rely on external help.

A total of 509,824 final-year junior high school (JHS) students will write this year’s BECE. The figure represents an increase of 41,771 over last year’s figure of 468,053 candidates.

The examination will begin in all regions across the country from June 4-8, 2018.