70% of 2023 ‘SHS/TVET’ placement challenges resolved – Free SHS

Approximately 70 percent of this year’s second cycle school placement challenges reported by students who sat for the 2023 Basic Education Certificate Examination have been resolved, the Free Senior High School Secretariat has said.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Nana Afrah Sika Mensah, the Deputy Coordinator of the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) Secretariat said her outfit through its resolution centers received more than 6,000 challenges.

The over 6,000 issues, the Free SHS Secretariat official said were mainly from prospective students who were not placed in any second cycle school by the computer placement and those who wanted to change schools due to location.

The Deputy Coordinator said 2023 Basic Education Certificate Examination graduates with a single aggregate were to select schools under Category “A”, while students with an aggregate of 10 to 14 were to select from Category “B.”

“Students with aggregate 15 and above are to choose schools from category “C” and select the programme for their courses. We are working on the issues, and within 24 hours, the challenges will be addressed,” she told GNA.

Describing the computer school placement resolution exercise as successful, Nana Afrah Sika Mensah, urged parents of the first-year Senior High School students to exercise patience while the Free SHS Secretariat addressed the challenges.

The Coordinator said even though admission had started on December 4, the Free Education Secretariat was optimistic about addressing their issues as early as possible, adding that the first and second weeks were for orientation.

Explaining the self-placement system, Nana Mensah said second cycle schools selected on the self-placement module could be changed as many times as the candidate wished on the portal until they enrolled into their preferred school.

She assured those who could not be matched with their choices during the automatic placement, that all schools with vacancies had been uploaded on the portal for students to select from during self-placement without hitches.

Out of the total number of 598,839 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) results from the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), the Ghana Education Service (GES) says 585,797 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 Ghana Education Service (GES) said in the release.