The Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, has revealed plans by the government to reclassify some SHSs to ease pressure on category A schools.
He revealed that the proposal will see 10 Category A schools downgraded to Category B and another 10 Category B schools upgraded to Category A.
Speaking at a press briefing at the Ministry on Tuesday, October 14, Haruna Iddrisu explained, “We have close to 393,000 students competing for only 76,000 spaces. The pressure on Category A schools is too high, and this makes placement less fair and transparent”.
The Education Minister added that reclassification will help distribute students more evenly and make the placement system more efficient.
He cited regional inequalities in the distribution of top-tier schools
“Regions like North East, Savannah, Oti, and Western North have no Category A schools. We intend to deliberately prioritise these areas with infrastructure investments to improve access to quality education,” he explained.
He also revealed that more than three people have been arrested for spreading false bribery claims in the school placement exercise.
The Education Minister added, “You know I’m not the police, so it’s the police who will give you that information. But what I can assure you is that they are even more than three. We have a very robust cybersecurity system, which is able to monitor and police fraudulent activities associated with the placement”.
“A few weeks back, we got national security to arrest three. They were interrogated. You recall when I said that, why would somebody with an aggregate of 37 be posted into a Category A school? That emanated from the earlier arrest,” he said.
“We’ve limited access to the portal, and it’s part of our management of it. Sitting here as a minister, I don’t have access to the portal. The deputy does not have access. The chief has no access. The director of GES does not have access. We’ve adopted this strategy so that we can hold each individual accountable,” he added.
“Those who expect that I would have done some magic this year, I’m sorry to disappoint you. I will work to fix it as a problem in the future,” he assured.
Meanwhile, Dr Belinda Glover, the National Coordinator of the Free SHS Secretariat, has announced that two individuals have been apprehended for reportedly offering bribes and attempting to influence the placement of their children in schools.
She warned that anyone attempting to tamper with the placement system will be identified and turned over to the authorities.
Speaking to the media, Dr Belinda Glover stated, “We have been able to arrest some of them, in fact, they come with multiple sheets, trying to do changes either day to boarding. Sometimes change in the program.
We have been able to track down those people, and have some of them to the police to deal with them”.
She added, “You can come here with more than two sheets; anything beyond that means you are here to do business with us, and we are not going to allow that. So far we have handed two people over to the Police”.
“Some of them come here with five or more placement sheets. Beyond 2, you are in for business because you can’t tell me you have five children all entering senior high school at the same time. Even with that, we followed up on some of these cases and found that they collect money from people and come here pretending to be parents. Once we detect that, we involve the police”, she added.
Also, Kofi Asare, the Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, has said the confusion over the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) is because parents want top schools for their children.
According to Kofi Asare, there is enough space to accommodate all qualified candidates, but parents and their children are chasing top schools.