Review the grading of Senior High Schools into categories – GNAT

The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has called on the Ministry in charge of Education to stop the grading of Senior High Schools into categories thus (A, B, C and D) to avoid some school placement challenges.

In an interview monitored by AcademicWeek, the general secretary of GNAT, Thomas Musah said the arrangement of second-cycle schools into various categories based on their academic performance is not doing any good.

The teacher union secretary said the classification creates the impression that public Senior High Schools not in Category A and B are not good enough, a situation he said is a severe challenge that must be considered.

“If you classify one school as A, another as B and another as C, it creates the impression that the C schools are not good, and I think we must do away with the grades A, B, C and D (categorization),” Mr Thomas Musah said.

Meanwhile, the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) Secretariat has said the resolution centres established across the country to resolve Senior High/Technical (SHS/TVET) placement issues would be operational for six weeks.

Speaking in the interview, Nana Afrah Sika Mensah, the Deputy Coordinator of the Free Senior High School said his outfit will address all challenges confronting the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS).

The Free SHS official disclosed that the Secretariat since the release of the school placement had received over 5,000 cases and resolved over 4,000 issues, saying “we are confident of addressing all challenges with the placement issues”.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, the Deputy Coordinator of Free Senior High School (Free SHS) said the exercise had gone smoothly and stated that the Category “A” and “B” schools were filled and had no vacancies available.

“Category “A” schools are regarded as the best in the country, followed by “B,” “C,” and “D,” and have the highest grades, best academic performances, and adequate facilities,” the Coordinator told the Ghana News Agency (GNA).

Asked what school placement issues the Secretariate is addressing, Nana Mensah said the Secretariat was working on issues related to change of school, change of programme, self-placement, change of residential status, and others.

She cautioned parents and guardians to report unscrupulous people, who may approach them to pay any amount of money for the computer school placement to the police or better still the relevant department for sanctions.

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.