Parents call for computerisation of SSS admissions

Mampong (Ash), April 27, GNA - The Asante-Mampong Concerned Parents Association (MCPA) has called on the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to ensure that the 2004/2005 admissions into the Senior Secondary Schools (SSS) were computerised.

The call, the association said, was to serve as a reminder to the Director-General's declaration in the media early this year on admissions into the SSS.

The computerisation, the association noted, will reduce the trauma parents go through in their bid to gain admissions for their wards. According to the association, the admission craze and the attendant frustrations parents go through had come about because heads of the well endowed schools have institutionalised single digit aggregate as the criterion for admission notwithstanding the fact that any candidate who scores up to aggregate 36 qualifies for admission to the SSS.

This situation, the association pointed out, had denied many brilliant students admission to their first choice schools, adding that the irony of the situation was that heads of the second choice schools also refuse to admit a student who does not get his first choice since according to them their schools do not play second fiddle to any school. The association said despite the regulation which enjoins heads of well endowed schools to display a list of limited students admitted to signify the close of admissions for the year under the cut-off point system, they do not do it but admit students with very low aggregates on the quiet.

It stressed that the computerisation should be seen as an attempt to address a serious admission problem, which should not be muzzled by the heads of such schools.