RTI fines MoE GH¢50,000 for denying EduWatch 2022 CSSPS data

The Right to Information Commission has fined the Ministry of Education (MoE) GH¢50,000 for refusing Africa Education Watch (EduWatch) the 2022 Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) data

In a post sighted by AcademicWeek, the education think tank said the Commission in line with the country’s RTI law has ordered the Education Ministry to immediately provide the computer school placement information to EduWatch.

The fine comes after the Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education denied an RTI request from Africa Education Watch to access data on school placements from the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS).

The Executive Director of the Watch, Kofi Asare said his outfit’s move follows petitions from concerned stakeholders including parents and school heads about issues emerging from the CSSPS, Eduwatch had initiated the RTI request to assess the effectiveness and equity of the same.

“We have also been concerned at Eduwatch about the proper functioning of the CSSPS because we appreciate why the system was birthed, and so when we received concerns from parents and school authorities and all that including government agencies about issues emerging from the angle of effectiveness and equity, then we were concerned,” he said.

The purpose of the request the EduWatch Director said was to ascertain whether the government was indeed living up to its promise of allocating 30% of school placements in Category A schools to students from public basic schools.

“So we actually requested from the CSSPS, we made an RTI request to the Director General of the GES requesting for the placement data to enable us to undertake an analysis. Our concern was actually the 30% allocation for public basic students.

“We wanted to be sure of the extent to which we have been given public basic school students their 30% in the category A schools. It was an equity analysis. It was denied. We petitioned the Ministry, but it was denied.  As I speak, we are still engaging the RTI on the next step after this was denied. We won’t play around this time,” he said.

Mr Kofi Asare indicated that access to such data would help Education Watch “to conduct research and advise the central government on how best to improve its own policy’s effectiveness through transparency.”

Out of the 547,329 BECE graduates who sat for the 2022 Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE), a total of 538,399 students qualified for this year’s CSSPS in Senior High and Technical and Vocational Schools.

A total of 372,780 students have been automatically placed in one of their school choices, while 165, 619 candidates, who could not be matched with any of their choices, are to do self-placement to select from available schools.