[ 2021-02-18 ]

SHS placement list to be released on Sunday – GES Director-General
Barring any last-minute hitches, this year’s
schools placement will be out on Sunday, February
21, the Director-General of the Ghana Education
Service (GES), Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, has
hinted.

The placement will cover candidates, both school
and private, who wrote the Basic Education
Certificate Examination (BECE) in 2020, as well as
other re-entrants.

In all, about 525,000 qualified BECE candidates
will be seeking placement into 721 senior high,
technical and vocational schools of their choices
which have declared about 535,000 vacancies.

Enough places
Prof. Opoku-Amankwa told the Daily Graphic that
the GES had worked closely with the West African
Examinations Council (WAEC) to release the results
of the majority of the candidates whose results
had been withheld, adding that there were
currently less than 100 candidates whose results
had still been withheld.

He added that there were enough vacancies for the
candidates, for which reason there was no need for
any candidate or parent to panic.

The director-general explained that the challenge
with the CSSPS had always been an issue of choice
and not the availability of spaces.

Oversubscribed schools
Prof. Opoku-Amankwa said over the years, the
number of candidates who qualified to be placed
was always far below the vacancies available,
“and every year when we do our placement, just
as we get oversubscribed schools, we also get
under-subscribed schools”.

He said only about 100 schools, out of the 721
were usually oversubscribed.

Arrangement
On the arrangements being put in place to address
overcrowding of candidates and parents, he
explained that unlike the previous years when the
management of the GES had to set up solution
centres where those with genuine issues could go
for help, “this year, because of the COVID-19,
we want to avoid the situation where people will
rush to the Black Star Square and other places to
gather”.

“So we are setting up call centres to receive
and work on issues people may be coming up
with,” he explained.

Prof. Opoku-Amankwa explained that at such centres
they could address genuine technical issues and
also the issue of a day student placed in a
distant school.

Asked whether or not the double-track system for
school attendance should be stopped, he said
discussions needed to go on as to whether or not
it should remain or be completely scrapped as
advocated by a section of society.

Self-placement
He also explained that based on an analysis of
issues by the service, “the major issue that
creates a problem for us is the
self-placement”.

“In the past, when you did the self-placement,
chose a school and for any reason you wanted to
change it, the system did not allow you to do so.
You needed to come back to us, and that was why we
got people massing up at the Black Star Square to
do those changes,” Prof. Opoku-Amankwa
explained.

This year, however, he added, the candidates would
be allowed some level of flexibility to effect
changes on their own.

“For this year, candidates will be allowed to
change schools a couple times until finally they
enrol in them. So until you enrol in a school, you
can continue to do changes up till the enrolment
deadline, and once you have the opportunity to
change, you do not need to come over here to seek
any assistance or for someone to do that for
you,” he told the Daily Graphic.

He was of the belief that the self-placement issue
formed more than 70 per cent of the challenges the
GES had concerning the placement and was
optimistic that with this new module, the system
would work smoothly.

Delays
He explained that the placement of candidates
under the CSSPS had, over the years, been done
three weeks to the reopening of schools, and
“this years is no different”.

“Usually we give them some three weeks to
prepare to go to school and we wanted to keep to
that,” he said.

Prof. Opoku-Amankwa also explained that there had
been no delay in the placement, as some people
were speculating, saying the same format that was
used during the pre-COVID-19 era was what the GES
had stuck to this year.

He said the period of waiting after the results
were released afforded the GES to engage with the
WAEC to ensure that majority of the candidates
whose results were withheld had them released.

On December 16, last year when WAEC released the
results, 977 candidates had their subject results
withheld, pending the outcome of investigations.

Source - Citinewsroom

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