8 ‘Mahama Day Schools’ rejected by BECE graduates – Education Minister

Education Minister says Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) graduates are refusing to select Community Day Senior High Schools put up by the John Mahama administration.

According to Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, chief among the reasons is the location of some of the Community Day Senior High Schools.

Some of them are located about 10 kilometres away from the closest town, which meant the children would have to cover that distance to and from school daily.

He revealed that eight of those schools included in the list of schools that have declared vacancies for admission of fresh students in 2018, were rejected by the students.

“Last year we put eight E-blocks that we completed onto the schools choice list and students did not choose those schools,” Dr Prempeh disclosed Thursday, September 19 at a press conference.

Taking his turn to address the issue at the ‘Meet the Press’ series, the Education Minister, however, stated that the situation is different with the E-Blocks built in the centre of communities such as Kwabenya, Frafraha, Kasoa and Parkoso in the Greater Accra, Central and Ashanti regions, respectively.

“But when you go to Banka, Drobonso and other areas where the distance between the nearest town and the school is about 10 kilometres. How do the students go to those schools?”

He was speaking to the challenges encountered this year with the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) and how the Ministry acted to resolve the issues.

To resolve the challenges and make those schools attractive to students, the Minister stated that the administration of President Nana Akufo-Addo has decided to improve the infrastructure in the Community Day SHSs, including boarding facilities.

“So government has put in place systems that will let the children go to those schools. So government has started a project to put dormitories…so that the kids can go to those schools because they are fantastically new schools but nobody wants to go there because of where they have been placed [located].”

Dr Prempeh stressed the need “to think about that and improve the structures in those schools so that all those schools become available.”



Background

This year has witnessed chaotic scenes relative to admissions into senior high schools following what the Ghana Education Service described as a breach of the self-placement module.

The process has also been dotted with challenges with allegations of inappropriate placements.

Thousands of distraught parents and their wards on Monday, besieged the Black Star Square to have issues with their placements resolved as some have complained of being placed in schools they did not choose.

Some students who had massed up at the Square on Monday passed out after standing for hours under sweltering conditions and were rushed to the Greater Accra Regional Hospital.

Normalcy, however, returned Tuesday, after a more organised process was instituted to secure placements for Junior High School graduates at the Black Star Square.

Source: Myjoyonline.com