We’ve protected school placement system with firewall – MoE

As part of measures to ensure the school placement system is not compromised, the Ministry of Education says it has secured the computerised school selection and placement system with a firewall to detect any unauthorized access.

In a discussion monitored by AcademicWeek, Minister for Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum said the move is to protect the state-of-the-art computer second cycle school placement system from any possible cyber attack or hack.

“Even If someone manages to hack into the school placement system, the system has a firewall to withstand it. So the idea that people who work on it can go in there and make changes are not accurate,” the Education Minister said.

Adutwum’s comment comes after The Fourth Estate investigation disclosed that some individuals who claim to be officials from the Ministry of Education monetized the 2021 school placement the Education Ministry has said is free.

According to the Estate’s report, computer placement into Category A or what could best be described as Top Senior High Schools (SHSs) in the country was sold from GH₵10,000 up to GH₵ 7,000 by the self-acclaimed MoE officials.

Meanwhile, Prof. Philip Ebow Bondzi-Simpson describing the computer placement as unfair has called on the Ministry of Education to cancel the automatic and self-placement mode of placing BECE students into second-cycle schools.

Speaking at the Mfantsipim Stakeholders Forum in Cape Coast, the Professor suggested heads of public second-cycle schools should be allowed to admit BECE students into their schools just like done at the basic and tertiary levels.

Mr Ebow in his address said that the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) is destroying the traditions of schools and hurting them, thus the need for the Education Ministry to review the school initiative.

“The system put in place to admit the students should take into account old boys/girls of the schools, children of staff, a consideration of the members of the church and a small amount of protocol,” he told stakeholders at the Forum.

He stressed that the computerized school placement is destroying the traditions of the school saying that “apart from the human interferences in the process that are putting many stakeholders of the school at a greater disadvantage.”