Disgruntled parents besiege Education Ministry over SHS placement

Some disgruntled parents and guardians on Tuesday besieged the premises of the Education Ministry to express their frustration over the non-placement of their wards in their preferred schools.

The Ghana News Agency, during a visit to the Ministry, witnessed some unhappy parents and their wards making frantic efforts to get their preferred placement.

Some also complained of their inability to access the placement website.

A parent, who pleaded anonymity, accused officials of the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) of placing his ward in a day school instead of a boarding school.

He alleged that because of the Government’s Free Senior High School (SHS) policy, the ward was placed in a low rated school.

“People prefer to pay and send their wards to schools of their choice, we don’t want any free SHS,” he said.

Some parents insisted that because the Government had already paid for specified number of students under the Free SHS Policy, it placed them randomly in any school without recourse to their selected schools.

They told the GNA that authorities at the Ministry gave them a new placement website and a code after paying GHc8.00, but they could not still access the website.

Madam Jemimah Cobinnah, who travelled from Sefwi-Wiawso in the Western Region to Accra, said her ward was placed in the fourth choice school and, therefore, rejected it, insisting that she should be placed in the second or third choice.

Meanwhile, in a press statement issued by Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, the Deputy Minister of Education in charge of Senior High School and Technical, Vocational and Educational Training, indicated that it had extended the deadline for the self-placement to Thursday, September 7, 2017.

It said the CSSPS and the National Information and Technology Agency were working closely to improve the accessibility to the placement website.

In addition, the technical personnel of the CSSPS were mopping up the SHS placement online to rectify all anomalies.

Source: GNA