EduWatch Director reacts to ‘bad’ BECE 2023 SHS/TVET placement

Africa Education Watch (EduWatch) Director, Kofi Asare following complaints by some parents that their wards who sat for 2023 BECE were placed in a bad second-cycle school by the computer placement system has urged them to relax.

“Those complaining about school placement because their wards did not get their preferred Category A or B school should take a chill,” the education think tank Director said in a social media post sighted by Thisterm.com.

He added “The person you are complaining to attended Benkum Senior High School, then a Category D school where some masters were either unavailable or National Service Persons. There is no bad school, just be a good parent.”

Mr Kofi Asare’s comment comes after some parents of Junior High School (JHS) students who sat for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) reported what they described as poor computerized school placement to him.

Last year after the CSSPS Secretariat released the 2020 school placement, he encouraged students to welcome and accept any second-cycle school they were automatically or self-placed by the computer saying “No school is bad.”

The Africa Education Watch Executive Director and farmer also cautioned parents and prospective candidates to be wary of some individuals parading as school placement contractors promising to change auto schools of candidates.

He explained that once a student is placed or enrolled in a second-cycle school, he or she cannot change it again, thus no need to contact any person who claims to be staff of Ghana Education Service to change the school placement.

“Many scammers are parading as school placement contractors, promising to change your ward’s school for you. Note that once auto-placed, you cannot change your school,” the Education Economist advised parents of BECE students.

In other news, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) for the Ministry of Education (MoE), Kwasi Kwarteng has said it is not compulsory for 2023 BECE graduates to be admitted into various second-cycle schools as first-year students to report to school on December 4, 2023.

“Resumption date for students within the SHS space remains Monday, December 4, 2023. The expectation is that students report on the first day. But let me also hasten to add that, the first-year students who are unable to report on the first day will not automatically lose their slots.

Students can report the following day or even the following week, as we have always witnessed. If you look at the academic calendar, it had already been within the public space for some time now and the expectation was that parents, guardians, and even students prepared ahead of time,” the Ministry spokesperson said in an interview.

The MoE spokesman’s comment comes after the Ghana Education Service in a press statement said that out of the 598,839 results received from the West African Examinations Council, 585,797 BECE candidates qualified to be placed.

“A total of 477,772 (81.56%) prospective students have automatically been placed in one of their choices. This is a significant improvement compared to last year’s, with over 100,000 more students placed.

However, 108,025 (18.44%) qualified candidates could not be matched with any of their choices. All such students are, therefore to do self-placement to select from available schools,” the management of the Service said in the release.