SHS places: 30% SHS quota to benefit students nationwide

A change in the special 30 percent quota of admissions into public senior high schools will see spots reserved for qualified junior high school graduates from public basic schools nationwide.

The Minister of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, during a press conference on Thursday, indicated that this was an improvement on the previous incarnation of the 30 percent quota policy.

Under the previous policy, 30 percent of the total number of vacancies was to be allocated to students who attended junior high schools within a 10-kilometer radius of the second cycle institution they selected to attend.

But the minister explained that this percentage was “highly abused” saying, “most of our elite schools happened to be between Accra and Takoradi along the sea shore. That is where most of these schools are. So those from typical villages, how do we get into those schools if our results are not extremely good or we are not coming from the public background?”

Thus, “that policy now will be reserved for any Ghanaian student in a public school, who chose that[elite school] whose results were as bad as 36, and can go in,” he said.

“The elite schools will be allowed to take only 70 percent of their requirements and an active programme to recruit and allow people from the public schools to get into those schools [will be in place].”

According to the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) most of the students who took advantage of the previous policy in 2016 came from the Central Region.

The benefiting students were noted to be specifically from Cape Coast, which boasts some of Ghana’s highly rated schools like Mfantsipim, Wesley Girls' High School, St. Augustine's College, Holy Child SHS and the Adisadel College.

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana