Parents, students clamour for SHS placements at Black Star Square

There were chaotic scenes at the Black Star Square in Accra yesterday when thousands of desperate parents and guardians besieged a centre set up by the Ghana Education Service (GES) to handle concerns relating to the placement of prospective students in senior high schools (SHSs) and technical and vocational institutes (TVIs).

In the process, seven people, including four female students, a pregnant woman and two male students, collapsed and were rushed to the Greater Accra Regional Hospital, where they were treated and discharged.

According to sources, the incident happened when the parents and the students surged forward in a frantic effort to reach officials at the solution centre

Stampede

The solution centre was set up at the VIP Stand of the Black Star Square, and in their haste to get served, the people attempted to rush through the door leading to the centre, resulting in a stampede.

The chaotic situation compelled the officials to call for police reinforcement to instil law and order at the venue.

As a result of the confusion, officials of the exercise suspended the process around 12 noon and asked the parents and their children to go home, with the assurance that the exercise would resume today.

At a point, armed policemen were placed at the entrance to the centre to prevent the crowd from gaining access to the centre.

Scores of parents and their children held in their hands brown envelopes that contained the result slips and prospectus of the students, who moved from one part of the venue to another.

Some parents and students who spotted a Daily Graphic branded vehicle rushed to it to speak to reporters to convey their grievances to the authorities.

Parents’ views

Some of the frustrated parents, who claimed to have turned up at the venue as early as 3 a.m., told the Daily Graphic that they would not leave the venue until their children were rightly placed.

“We have been asked to go home, after we have been here since dawn, and no official bothered to address our concerns,” Madam Andah Yakubu, who was seeking replacement of school for her son, said.

She said her child was placed at the Kapolhin SHS in Tamale as a day student and wanted him to be placed in any school in Kumasi, since she lived in Kumasi.

Mr Isaac Biney, a parent, said officials handling the exercise had not communicated well with parents, leading to the stampede, as parents had to struggle to get information.

"There is no proper communication between the authorities and parents here; we are here and nobody is attending to us as to where to go or sit," he said.

Mr Samuel Kwesi Etuah, whose story was no different, said his son had been placed at the St Joseph SHS in Tamale, while he lived in the Central Region.

He, therefore, wanted a school for his son in the Central Region, saying: "I came here last Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and when it got to my turn today, I was told they had closed the exercise and so we should go home and come tomorrow."
However, Mrs Katherine Maame Hagan, also a parent, blamed some parents for contributing to the placement problem.

"Because of tribalism, some parents do not want their children to go to schools outside their home regions and they are the reason we have a lot of people here," she explained.

Uncooperative crowd

When the Daily Graphic sought answers to the concerns raised by the parents, the Public Relations Officer of the Free SHS Secretariat of the

Ministry of Education, Mrs Josdes Berta, said the officials for the exercise were ready to address those concerns.
Prior to the process, she said, the officials had announced to the gathering to constitute themselves into groups for their concerns to be addressed.

“However, all of a sudden, the people started rushing in their numbers to the centre and we were overwhelmed. The people refused to cooperate with the officials, stampeding the whole process, during which many people could not get air to breath and that led to the collapse of one or two persons,” she stated.

Mrs Berta added that in spite of persistent appeals to the gathering to move back in order to be served, “they refused to cooperate and we had to call for reinforcement. We told them that we will end the process around 12 noon and that we will reconvene tomorrow”.

No death

To ascertain rumours of the death of one person in the stampede, the Daily Graphic visited the La Hospital about 2.30 p.m., but officials at the facility denied the reports.

At the Greater Accra Regional Hospital, the Medical Director, Dr Emmanuel Srofenyoh, told the Daily Graphic that seven people, including four female students, two male students and a pregnant woman, were sent to the hospital in an ambulance and were treated and discharged a few hours later.

He denied the reports that one person had been sent in dead.

Ministry of Education reacts

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education, in a statement, said it had taken notice of the parents who thronged the Black Star Square to seek redress regarding the placement of their children.

It stated that vacancies available in schools far exceeded the number of qualified candidates.

According to the ministry, the prevailing problems were associated with change of schools, track, programmes, residential status and self-placement.

“We wish to inform the public that the selection of schools is the prerogative of the candidates, by extension parents and guardians. These choices cannot be changed by the GES or the Computerised Schools Selection and Placement System (CSSPS),” it said.

The statement reiterated the government’s commitment to the free SHS programme in ensuring that no qualified child was left out.