Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng writes: Over the past week, I have received several distress calls and desperate messages from friends who are not particularly amused by the senior high school their children or wards have been placed in.
Even though I left the Ministry of Education in 2021 and have been swimming in opposition waters for the past 10 months or so, they still harboured slivers of hope that I would be able to ‘do something’ about their plight. Alas…
This week, Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng's guest columnist is Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, and who was the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service under the previous government. He reflects on his own journey into secondary school five decades ago and shares his thoughts on the school placement process.
Long-standing issue
The ongoing reports on our media portals about the frustrations of parents as they throng the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) Hall in Accra to seek redress for various alleged anomalies are worrying.
Whilst some want a change of school, others want a change of programme, and yet others want a change in residency status, primarily from day to boarding.
These scenes bring to mind the several challenges we had to deal with on this issue in my time as Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES).
Tempting as it may be for some to blame placement challenges on the Free Senior High School (FSHS) policy introduced by the previous government, this would be a grave disservice and would needlessly politicise it, because it is an age-old problem.
In November 2015, the Vice-President, Paa Kwesi Bekoe Ammisah Arthur (may his soul rest in peace), had to visit Wesley Girls High School to meet and assure some 200 students and their parents that efforts were underway to resolve their admission problems.
The parents and their wards had pitched camp close to the school waiting for the school authorities to admit the students; however, the authorities insisted that they had no vacancy for the additional 200 students the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) had assigned to the school.
JoyFm Central Regional correspondent, Richard Kojo Nyarko, reported on November 12, 2015, that: “For the past few weeks the school (Wesley Girls) has been turned into a funeral parlour, with the students and their parents crying and hoping the authorities will rescind their decision and admit the students”.
The Vice-President, who was in Cape Coast for some official engagements, decided to visit Wesley Girls and interact with frustrated parents and their wards: "We have seen on TV the trouble you are going through. We understand your concerns.
We have spoken to your children and we want to assure you that steps have been taken that will allow for your children to come to school,” the Vice-President was quoted to have said.
Travelling back into the sands of time in my own experience, I do not quite recollect my secondary school choices when I sat for my Common Entrance Examinations nearly five decades ago.
I remember, though, that I received an admission letter from a school in the Eastern Region, which was not one of my choices.
I also remember vividly the emotional, psychological and physical stress and the frustrations my mother and I went through – similar to what many parents and their wards are going through currently – to finally get me enrolled at Suhum Secondary Technical School.
The admission challenges I faced 48 years ago, similarly confronted students 25 years ago and it took a sitting Vice-President then, to try to resolve them.
In 1977, I declined to go to the school that initially offered me admission because it was not my choice.
In 2015, the 200 students placed at Wesley Girls High School insisted that they be admitted to their choice school despite the school’s insistence that there were no vacancies.
This year, 2025, nearly 50 years since my predicament, students are refusing to accept admission to schools other than their first choice.
Day policy, boarding culture
This year, the issue has been exacerbated, among others, by the government’s policy to increase day students’ intake, ostensibly to cut costs, as boarding is more expensive. The 2025 CSSPS guidelines mandated students to choose two day school options.
In addition, all the nearly 60 private schools that migrated onto the FSHS programme would offer day intake only.
Even though I am an advocate for day SHS, because it is relatively less burdensome on the public purse and offers parents, as well as the larger community, the opportunity to be part of the socio-cultural development of their wards, the stark reality is that the boarding school system looks more attractive and convenient to many parents and their wards.
It has become a quasi-cultural gold standard of sorts, as far as secondary education is concerned. Some parents even see boarding school as a way for their children to be toughened up.
This attachment to the boarding system is, I believe, a carryover from the colonial days when secondary schools were few and far between and boarding was therefore necessary.
Indeed, today, whilst most children live within easy commuting distance of junior high schools, the same cannot be said of senior high schools.
The fact also remains that with the demand for places in Category A schools (there are about 59 (SHS/SHTS) and 34 (TVET) of them out of the 956 or so senior high schools) outstripping availability, many children with decent grades do miss out on their schools of choice.
Model school system
I do not believe that compelling candidates to select more day options will, in itself, solve the perennial challenges.
Many of them would find ways to get their preferred schools.
A way out of this annual cyclical problem, in my humble view, is to revisit President Kufuor’s ‘model school system’ which upgraded at least one school per district to a category A/B+ status.
When parents are assured that the SHS in their neighbourhood is of equal standard to a school in Cape Coast, Accra, or Kumasi, they will feel more confident to take their children to the school, even as a day student.
E-mail: rodboat@yahoo.com
