Allow CSSPS to work efficiently

In 2005, the Ghana Education Service (GES) introduced the Computerised Schools Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) to place qualified Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates in senior high schools (SHSs) and technical and vocational institutions (TVIs).

The CSSPS was introduced as a better option than the previous practice where the placement of candidates was done manually and was characterised by fraud and manipulations.

And, so, for over 10 years now, this has been the way by which qualified candidates are placed in schools of their choice.

For us at the Daily Graphic, any move towards injecting efficiency and improving our educational system is a good cause that must be supported. That is why we strongly support the system, which seeks to give equal opportunity to every Ghanaian child.

However, the Daily Graphic is worried that every year the placement system is bedeviled with complaints of candidates not being placed in their preferred choice of schools.

We wish to appeal to the GES to have a relook at the system and ensure that whenever such complaints are genuine, they are dealt with quickly to ensure trust and confidence in the system, for, after all, errors can occur with technology.

However, the CSSPS challenge goes beyond errors with the system. Candidates want to be placed in particular schools and, therefore, we find some schools getting more students than they can accommodate, while other schools receive virtually no candidate.

This year, in particular, all the 721 public SHSs in the country declared 520,298 vacancies, while the number of candidates who qualify to be placed is 473,728.

This, ordinarily, should be good news that all the candidates will secure placement, with as many as 46,570 places remaining vacant.

But, while there is 'stampede' at the gates of some schools, other schools have their gates wide open, without anybody entering.

The reason for this is the perception that some schools are superior to others.

Another challenge is that while the CSSPS may be a good initiative, reports of excessive human interference certainly defeat the goal of the system.

Currently, there are allegations that some schools and officials of the GES are demanding between GHc2,500 and GHc5,000 to get schools changed and some parents have actually paid for the favour.

This must be a serious blot on our conscience as a nation. It also unfortunately creates the impression to our children that money can be used to pave the way for them, even when they do not deserve it.

The Daily Graphic believes that the time has come for innovative measures to be taken to address the challenges confronting SHS placement and that stakeholders and the whole country, for that matter, need to take a second look at our educational system.

We must revisit the policy of developing some of the SHSs in each region as model schools, with all the modern facilities required in a standard SHS, as a way of decongesting these highly sought-after schools.

If the nation is able to do this, it will go a long way to encourage many students to choose those model schools, as they know that the quality of education that they will receive in other schools will not be sacrificed.

For us at the Daily Graphic, it is our contention that the whole exercise of school placement is not an event but a process, which requires that we all play our roles to make it effective.