The Minister for Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum has called on heads of Senior High Schools (SHSs) to admit students with grade 25 placed by the computerized school placement into their school for academic purpose’s sake.
Mr Adutwum in his address at the launch of the University of Cape Coast at 60 celebrations, it is not best for ‘Category A’ schools to always admit the best BECE candidates and prepare them to pass and score good grades in WASSCE.
Instead, the Education Minister said Senior High Schools described as ‘top schools’ admitting Basic Education Certificate Examination graduates with low grades and helping them to excel in WASSCE will make them stand out.
Following public assertions that BECE students with an aggregate of 25 and above should not be admitted to best-perform Senior High Schools like PRESEC-Legon, Mr Osei Yaw Adutwum said that argument boggles his mind.
According to the Bosomtwe Member of Parliament, such protective students are the ones who should be posted by the computerized school placement to overly subscribed schools like Wesley Girls, where they have talented teachers.
“If Wesley Girls wants to prove they have the best teachers, and they are the best school, they need to take in students with a grade of 20 and turn them around so that they can tell us that they are better than Jachie Pramso,”
he said.
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In a related development, Institute of Child Development (ICD) on behalf of the Private Schools Association, Councils and Coalition has taken the responsibility to challenge the 2021 BECE school placement in court over discrimination.
The educational multipurpose-based entity in a statement captured by FussGhana said the court action is also based on the position of private schools on the 2021 BECE results released by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).
“9 out of 10 of private schools we spoke to on the 2021 Basic Education Certificate Examination expectation believe their candidates were marked down or there have been a massaged of private schools results to favour public schools
“It looks as if there is a grand scheme by GES to weaken private education because of their quality education success at the pre-tertiary which many Ghanaians believe and support strongly,” the Institute of Child Development (ICD) noted.
Following the concerns, ICD says a legal team has been constituted to challenge the constitutionality of the 30% placement reservation slot for government school BECE candidates into Senior High Schools at the Supreme Court.
“This is to make sure that no Ghanaian child is discriminated against: whether from the private or public establishment, race, origin, colour gender, status and socio-economic background,” the Education Think Tank said its statement.