Parents who made their way to the Greater Accra Region school placement resolution centre at the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) Hall yesterday have described the process as smooth and efficient.
According to them, the situation at the centre was the opposite of what was observed on Tuesday where a large number of parents and candidates who had made their way to the place to have their issues resolved had to form a long queue just to go through the resolution process.
When The Ghanaian Times visited the GNAT Hall, yesterday it observed that only a few number of parents, together with their children, were present to go through the resolution process.
The parents were seen filling out forms to provide their details, including their personal information and the issues they faced, after which they were asked to go home and return later.
However, efforts by the paper to speak to officials at the centre proved futile.
Some of the challenges that the parents spoke about were the placement of their wards into schools the wards did not select as part of the seven-school choices and the admission of candidates into special schools instead of regular schools.
Mr Frank Adjei, in an interview with The Ghanaian Times, said, “I am happy with what I have seen so far. Before coming to the centre, I was wondering about the time I will be leaving here because of the large number of people who I heard were here on Tuesday. But when I got here today, I realised that the number was less and the process was going on smoothly.”
Mrs Elizabeth Lartey said she was at the resolution centre because her ward was placed in a special school despite not being a student with special education needs.
“I don’t know why my daughter is admitted to the school for the deaf because I didn’t even choose it,” Mrs Lartey lamented.
Mr Edward Nyarko, who noted that he arrived at the centre at 5 a.m., said that his son was automatically placed into a school in the Northern Region that he did not choose.
“I came here to change the school because I can not allow my son to go to a school that is far from Accra. I don’t know anyone in the Northern Region, so I chose schools in Accra,” Mr Nyarko said.
The school placement resolution which began on Friday was to ensure that all issues regarding the school placement for Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) following the release of automatic placement for qualified candidates as announced by the Deputy Minister of Education, Dr Clement Abas Apaak, on Thursday.
Out of the total number of 603,328 candidates that sat for the BECE this year, 590,309 candidates qualified for placement into Senior High Schools (SHS), Senior High Technical School, Technical and Vocational Institutions.
Out of the 590,309 qualified candidates, 483,800 candidates, representing 82 per cent, had automatic placement, whereas 107,509 candidates, could not be matched with their initial school choices due to high demand for certain Category A schools.
BY BENJAMIN ARCTON-
TETTEY & ALBERTA BONSI
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