SHS placement to be finalized by September 28

Accra, Sept. 2, GNA - Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, Minister of Education, on Tuesday announced that the Senior High School (SHS) placement report for the recent Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) will be available in schools by September 28, 2009. He, therefore, advised candidates and their parents to wait until the reports reached the Junior High Schools where they were expected to complete placement forms.

"Candidates could however access information on placement result through the SMS on the mobile networks. Code for accessing the information will be confirmed as soon as the placement exercise is completed, hopefully by Tuesday, September 15, 2009." Mr Tettey-Enyo announced this at the maiden edition of a programme dubbed: "Matters Arising" organized by the Ministry of Information in a form of a press conference to answer to pertinent issues as and when necessary.

He said it will take approximately 14 days to run the Computerized School Selection Placement System (CSSPS) software and additional 14 days to process the placement report which involved sorting, packaging and dispatch to schools through the regional and district directorates. Mr Tettey-Enyo explained that to qualify for placement, a candidate's grade in any of the four core subjects should not exceed five and the total grade must not exceed 30. "A Candidate who has any of his core subject cancelled by the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) will be deemed not qualified for selection and placement."

Giving statistics, Mr Tettey-Enyo said the number of candidates that took the 2009 BECE was 395,647 while those qualified by the approved Ghana Education Service Criteria was 200,642. He, however, said the total number of vacancies declared by public SHS and Technical Institution as of now was 198,000 in addition to vacancies in existing private schools.

Mr Tettey-Enyo said the Ministry in collaboration with the Council of Technical and Vocational Education Training (COTVET) will implement an apprenticeship scheme for those unable to enter second cycle institution.

The Minister said the placement form must be submitted to the District, Municipal or Metropolitan Directorate of Education where the candidates attended Junior High School for the form to be endorsed by the Directors for submission to heads of second cycle institutions. He urged the directorates to ensure that they put in place appropriate strategies to facilitate the completion of the form in the Junior High School and their subsequent endorsement to avoid undue delays in the admission process.

Mr Tettey-Enyo said "We expect the Directorates to complete the exercise within five days," he said advising the heads of JHS to be at post to receive placement reports and assist parents and their students to avoid delays.

"Heads of JHS are to refrain from with-holding placement form of candidates for any reason." Mr Tettey-Enyo urged heads of SHS and Technical Institutions to accept the duly endorsed placement form as the authentic document for admission.

He said government had strengthened the monitoring system of the process to ensure that people in charge did not take undue advantage of parents and stressed that the placement forms were not for sale and should not attract any fee.

Mr Tettey-Enyo said all continuing students were expected to be in school by September 11, 2009 while fresh students were to be in school between October 12-17, 2009.

He advised parents to accept the placement of their children since the placement was based on the six choices made by the candidates and cautioned that the sector Ministry and the Ghana Education Service would not accept request for changes in the placement made.