Students' SHS choice will be granted – MoE

The Ghana Education Service (GES) did not place any qualified Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates into senior high schools against his/her wish, Deputy Minister of Education in-charge of second cycle education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has said.

Some parents and students over the years have complained of postings to secondary schools they did not choose, but the government said the situation is different this year.

According to Dr Adutwum, all the 460,941 qualified BECE candidates will be placed in schools of their choice. The 150,000 out of a total of 460,941 who did not get placement after the first round of placement have been given a second choice to go online to select a school of their choice.

Speaking at a press conference in Accra on Monday, 4 September 2017, Dr Adutwum said: “At the end of the first part of the placement, a number of students were of course placed in their schools of choice. This year we did something unique. What we did different was the fact that we did not place students against their wish.

“Over the years there have been complaints from parents and rightly so, that ‘why do you post my child to a school he/she did not select?’ So this year what we decided to do differently was that, after we do the initial placement, whoever did not get placed will have the opportunity to go to a website and together with the parent go through the list of schools that are available and then select a school that is most convenient to them.”

The GES has extended the period of selecting a school of choice after the initial deadline expired.