According to Katayie Kwame Opoku Agyemang, the Central Regional Coordinator of the Free Senior High School (SHS) Secretariat, there are sufficient vacancies to accommodate all graduates of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) who are eligible to attend Senior High School (SHS).
‘All BECE candidates who are yet to be placed in SHSs will certainly get placements in schools where vacancies exist.” Katakyie Agyemang, who gave the assurance in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), said the Secretariat was working to address challenges associated with the Computerized School Selection Placement Secretariat (CSSPS).
He asked qualified students who were not placed to go online at any nearby internet cafe and select an option available and follow the procedures to select preferred schools on the site.
The Regional Coordinator noted that the Secretariat from Monday, March 28 to Tuesday,29, had received more than 200 complaints with the dominant cases being ‘change of school’ but expressed hope to clear the issues as soon as possible from both parents and students.
The issues, he stated, had been compiled and would be sent to the National Headquarters for resolution.
In improving and addressing issues related to the CSSPS, the Directorate had instituted centres to address school placement concerns.
Some challenges recorded by his outfit include change of school and programme, wrong placement, no placement, issues relating to Day and Boarding placement and errors on the gender of students, and re-entry by 2019-20 students, among others.
Katakyie Agyemang urged students and parents not to panic because their offices were widely open to ensure that the numerous complaints on placement were addressed.
He noted that the Secretariat rolled out the training and sensitization programme before the selection and placement exercise to engage stakeholders to understand the processes and how students could be assisted to do the needful.
He said Central Region had 16 of the 139 Technical and Vocational Schools in the country, absorbed under the Free SHS Policy to help make it easier for those interested to get a good chance to be enrolled.
Additionally, 120 special categories ‘C’ schools have been designated for students interested in living at the boarding home to choose from, 12 of which are in the Region. Since the Secretariat had received a series of complaints from parents blaming headteachers for their children’s school choices, Katakyie Agyemang instructed Headteachers and Headmistresses of Junior High Schools to enable parents to choose their children’s schools.