School Placement: We have resolved over 60 per cent challenges – Free SHS Secretariat

The Free Senior High School Secretariat says it has resolved 60 to 70 per cent of placement issues for first-year students across the country. The Secretariat through its resolution centres received over 6,000 issues, mainly for students who were not placed in any school and those who wanted to change schools due to location. Nana Afrah Sika Mensah, the Deputy Coordinator of the Free Senior High School Secretariat said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra. The Deputy Coordinator said students with single aggregate were to select schools under category 'A', while students with aggregate 10 to 14 are 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. She said the Secretariat staff were working on the issues, and within 24 hours, the challenges would be addressed. According to her, the exercise had been successful and urged parents to exercise patience while the Secretariat addressed the challenges. She said even though admission had started on December 4, the Secretariat was optimistic about addressing their issues as early as possible, adding that the first and second weeks were for orientation. Nana Mensah said schools selected on the Self-Placement Portal could be changed as many times as the candidate wished on the portal until they enrolled. She assured the public, guardians and students, especially 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. Nana Mensah cautioned parents not to pay money to anybody since the exercise was free. The GNA observation revealed that the solution centres are collecting contacts and other relevant details from parents and guardians to address their issues. A statement from the Ministry of Education said that out of the total number of 598,839 results received from WAEC, 585,797 candidates qualified to be placed. Source: Ghana News Agency