SHS Computer Placement Wahala: GES Boss proposes new Solutions

Following the issues that has characterized the ongoing Senior High School Computer Placement system, the Ghana Education Service (GES) has proposed that 90% of placement slots into Category A schools must be reserved for students from public Junior High Schools.

Director-General of the Service, Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa stated this during an interview on Ekosiisen show on Asempa FM – an Accra-based radio station.

He said students from private schools before being enrolled in any of the top schools should be made to write entrance exams.

“During placement, we reserve 30% vacancy (into Category A schools) for students from public schools but in our various meetings I have proposed 80% or 90% placement slots for the government students,” he told Asempa FM.

The Ghana Education Service (GES) Director-General continued “for private school BECE graduates they should be made to write an entrance examination before given admission into any of the Category A Senior High Schools.”

Mr Opoku-Amankwa’s comment comes after his colleague Professor had suggested the cancellation of the Computerized school selection placement system used to place BECE graduates into various public second cycle schools.

Prof. Philip Ebow Bondzi-Simpson who called for the revocation of the placement system in his address at an Mfantsipim Stakeholders Forum in Cape Coast on Monday said the computerized school placement system process is unfair.

He indicated the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) is destroying the traditions of schools and hurting them, thus the need for the Ministry of Education (MoE) to review the random school placement policy.

“The system put in place to admit the students should take into account old boys/girls of the schools, children of staff, a consideration of the members of the church and a small amount of protocol,” he told stakeholders at the Forum.

He emphasized that the computerized school placement is destroying the traditions of the school saying that “apart from the human interferences in the process that are putting many stakeholders of the school at a greater disadvantage.”

With additional file from Educationweb