Head of Public Affairs at the West African Examination Council (WAEC), John K. Kapi has characterised the initial day of the ongoing Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) as trouble-free, despite receiving notifications of exam irregularities in three regions.

John Kapi disclosed instances of misconduct were detected in the Ashanti, Greater Accra, and Central regions.

For instance, in the Ashanti Region, he mentioned that a student was apprehended while trying to enter the examination hall with unauthorized materials.

He also emphasized that measures have been put in place to deal with persons who flout examination regulations to make sure fairness prevails.

Speaking in an interview with JoyNews, the Head of Public Affairs for WAEC highlighted the report of malpractices they received on the first day and how they would deal with the culprits.

“I guess we've had a good day so far. No reports have come from anywhere, so I guess everything's okay. We've received a few reports from the Ashanti Region where one individual was picked up, but he was trying to approach the examination hall with some foreign material for the candidates. We've also picked somebody up from Tema Central, where the lady had some information that she intended to pass on to the candidates. In the Central Region, We picked up two people who were answering the questions in the middle of the paper that intended to send to the candidate writing exam.

“Anybody who breaches any of these rules, what you do is simply report you to the law enforcement agencies. They apply our rules, and then they are charged. They are sent to court. We still have our monitors in the field. We have our own officers who are monitoring the centers. We have the National Investigative Bureau who are working with us. We also have our own locally-recruited personnel who are monitoring these centers. And so, we'll continue to maintain momentum. We'll sustain momentum until the exams are over,” he said.

He further commended the soaring female population for dominating this year’s examination and for breaking the jinx of male domination over the past years.

“We know now that we're having more female candidates going into this examination as compared to the male population. Over the years, we've had the males dominating in examinations. So if there are many more females who are coming up, I think it's a good thing that is worth celebrating for us as a society and as a nation,” he added.