GES Reviews SHS Placement Grades

Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates with more than aggregate 30 will now be admitted to senior high schools and technical institutes under the Computerised Schools Selection Placement System (CSSPS).

This means that candidates with aggregate close to 40 would now be placed in senior high schools and technical institutes.

The decision is the outcome of the review of the SHS selection criteria policy by the Ghana Education Service (GES), the National Coordinator of the CSSPS, Mr Samuel Oppong, said in an interview with the Daily Graphic.

Previously, only candidates with aggregate up to 30 qualified for admissions under the CSSPS. The qualified candidates needed to score not more than grade five in any of the core subjects of English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies, and not more than grade six in any other two electives.

The criteria meant that a candidate who scored one in other subjects and scored grade six in Mathematics did not qualify for placement in an SHS or technical institute.

Mr Oppong said the change was to enable more BECE graduates falling into that category to enter senior high, adding that “all BECE candidates will be placed based on access and the enforcement of quality”.

Moreover, he said, the playing field for all BECE candidates had not been levelled, as some, mostly those in private schools, were prepared under better facilities than those from the public schools, hence the decision.

He also noted that a research carried out by the GES to admit some BECE candidates with aggregate 40 and 42 in SHS, showed that those candidates were not bad at all, and that given the right environment they would do well.

Mr Oppong said those aggregate 40 and 42 BECE candidates scored some ‘As’ in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), meaning “their junior high school environment was not good but with the right environment in SHS they can do well”.

Aside the poor environment and facilities, he said, some public JHSs did not have the full complement of teachers, thereby putting them at a disadvantage.

The National Coordinator said although private school candidates did very well in the BECE, checks and monitoring carried out by the GES showed that some of those candidates who did well were helped during the BECE.

Mr Oppong cited some candidates who had aggregate six in the BECE who were posted to well-endowed or popular SHSs but could not write a single composition.

He said the review of the selection criteria was not to lower standards but to encourage those who did not have the best of preparations.

He maintained that admission was still competitive and that if a candidate did not get good grades there was no way the person would get a popular school or the so-called endowed schools, but a community school.

Mr Oppong said some community schools did not have the full complement of students, and that the initiative would go to address that inadequacy.

He said every effort was being put in place by the government to improve the quality of education right from the basic level, and that those measures would be pursued vigorously.

On admissions for this year, he said 376,423 vacancies had been declared by heads of second cycle schools, and that 99.5 per cent of the total candidature of this year’s BECE had been placed.

A total of 376,859 candidates from 11,164 public and private junior high schools across the country wrote this year’s BECE.

The candidates represented a 4,033 increase over last year’s figure of 372,826.

In all, 203,394 males and 173,465 females sat for the one-week examination.

According to Mr Oppong, 60,000 candidates applied for the 30 per cent quota to attend schools in their communities. This year’s placement would be released live on Ghana Television (GTV) today Thursday, September 6, 2012.