99.6% of BECE candidates qualify for SHS admission-GES Boss

The Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Miss Benedicta Naana Biney says 99.6 per cent of students who sat the 2012 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) have qualified to enter Senior High Schools (SHS) and Technical Institutes (TI).

The candidates, numbering 375,258, scored between aggregates six and 40, thus meeting the requirements for placement into second-cycle schools under the Computerised Schools Selection and Placement System (CSSPS), have changed.

Speaking at a press conference in Accra, to release the 2012 placement of candidates, Ms Naana Biney, said 245,143 candidates, representing 65 per cent of the total who qualified, had so far been placed.

She said the remaining 130,115 (34.6 per cent) candidates would be placed when the heads of schools submitted a list of vacancies in their schools in two weeks' time.

She said candidates can access their placement on their mobile phones by texting their index number plus year of completion to short code 1060 on all mobile network except Tigo to know the schools they have been placed in.

Ms Biney said each successful candidate was required to print out his/her placement form from the Internet using a GES scratch card purchased at GH¢4 from any branch of the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), the ARB Apex Bank and its network of rural banks, SIC-Financial Services Limited, Fidelity Bank and Ghana Post.

The printout form from the Internet, she said, would be presented to the SHS or TI the candidate had been placed in for admission.

“Candidates who are unable to use the scratch card for various reasons, especially those who have no access to the Internet, should contact the nearest regional or district education offices for the hard copies of the placement results,” she advised.

Ms Biney said first-year students were to report to school on October 15, 2012.

She said the GES expected all regional directors of education, regional Computerised Schools Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) co-ordinators, district/municipal/metro directors and heads of second-cycle schools to facilitate the placement process.

The Director General GES, said the service expected the full co-operation of the public in this year's placement, adding, “We implore parents and candidates to accept the placement made, since it is based on their own choice of schools and programmes upon merit.”

Ms Biney counseled parents to show interest in the registration of BECE candidates in order to make inputs in their children's choice of schools, with the advice of teachers.

“Such an important exercise should not be left solely with the teachers or pupils. There are many complaints from parents that they do not know how particular schools were chosen by their children.

“It is when parents are confronted with the truth that, after all the choices were made by the children themselves, that they begin to beg for transfer of their children to other schools,” she said.

Ms Biney indicated that parents could seek advice from seasoned educationists where they could not contact heads of schools.

Story by Raphael Apetorgbor