Computer Selection and Placement System reviewed

The Ghana Education Service (GES) has reviewed the Computerized School Selection and Placement system (CSSPS) to enable more qualified candidates to gain admission to Senior High Schools.

The review was necessitated by the fact that every year, since its inception in 2004, about 20 per cent of candidates with good scores are not able to get placement.

Mr. Samuel Bannerman-Mensah, Director General of the GES, speaking at a media briefing in Accra on Friday, said the CSSPS has been confronted with many challenges in its five years of operation.

He said most of the problems were human-related since some parents repeatedly selected the same school in the options given them with the perception that their wards would get that particular school, no matter their performances.

Mr. Bannerman-Mensah said other candidates refused to select schools in their communities thereby placing undue stress on schools with limited boarding facilities, while others placed their priorities on particular schools that did not have place for them as a result of the high competition in the aggregates scored.

He said to address the challenges, schools had been categorized according to availability of facilities, geographical location, subjects offered and vacancies available to allow candidates spread their choices so as to increase their chances of being placed.

He said the schools had been put into six categories of Public Senior High Schools in 'A,' to 'D', Public Technical/Vocational, Institutions under category 'T' and Private Senior High Schools and Technical Vocational Institutes in category 'P'.

Mr. Bannerman-Mensah explained that every candidate was expected to choose a total of six schools, stressing that candidates would be allowed to choose only one school from category 'A' and a maximum of two schools from category 'B'.

He said if a candidate made five choices from categories 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D' and 'T' the sixth school must be either from category 'C' or 'D', 'T' or 'P'.

“A person who desires to pursue purely Technical courses may select all six choices from category 'P'. The same also goes for candidates who desire to pursue courses in private senior high schools.

Mr. Bannerman-Mensah said as a result of the development, the Basic Entrance Certificate Examination registration has been decoupled, explaining that it would give the candidate another opportunity to re-select their schools and programmes between April 4 to 8 before their examinations while the registration for the BECE would now take place in September/October.

Previously the registration and the school selection were done at the same time.