The Minister for Education, Haruna Iddrisu has explained the reasoning behind the government’s new Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) placement policy, linking the decision to long-standing inequalities, infrastructure deficits, and quality concerns within the secondary education system.
Announcing the policy at a press conference on Wednesday, Mr. Iddrisu said the reform forms part of wider efforts to improve the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) and enable students to make more informed choices about their academic paths.
Under the previous system, candidates were required to select their preferred Senior High Schools before sitting the BECE, often without a clear sense of their likely performance. According to the minister, this frequently resulted in mismatches and inefficiencies in the placement process.
Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on April 2, the minister said the new policy, which allows candidates to select their preferred senior high schools only after the release of their results, is intended to make the placement system fairer, more transparent, and predictable.
“For the time being, we need to overhaul the comprehensive school placement system to make it fair, transparent, and predictable,” he said. “And one of the measures, apart from improving the data algorithm, will be to state that one student will only make a determination of their choice of school after their results are known.”
Pressure on the System
Mr. Iddrisu said the reform is rooted in broader structural challenges facing the education sector, particularly rising demand driven by population growth.
“The country has grappled with the problem of responding to expanding access to secondary education arising out of population growth,” he said. “But in the last decade, we have not met that with adequate infrastructure and quality assurance.”
He noted that the previous system required students to select schools before sitting the BECE, often without knowing their likely performance.
“In the past, you only chose a school even without knowing what your aggregate is or will be,” he said. “And that made many of them opt for choices that were not consistent even with their academic standing.”
Imbalance in school demand
The minister highlighted a persistent mismatch between demand for top-tier schools and available spaces.
“Now, the fundamental problem has been that we have probably 70,000 vacancies in what is described as Category A schools, but you have 285,000 applications for Category A schools,” he explained. “Then, probably you have 500,000 vacancies in Category C, but nobody wants it because of its quality.”
“Then you have only 180,000 applying for it when there are vacancies in Category C.”
Upgrading Lower-Tier Schools
To address these disparities, the government has secured support from the World Bank to improve infrastructure and standards across the system.
“Government has secured funding from the World Bank to deal with not just the symptom, but the real problem, to convert a number of Category C schools to B and Category B schools to A,” he said.
Mr Iddrisu also pointed to regional inequalities in access to top-tier schools.
“A region like the Oti Region and the Savannah Region does not have a dedicated Category A school, even in the North East Region,” he said. “That we have to deal with to improve, generally, the quality of secondary education in Ghana.”
Free SHS and Quality Concerns
While acknowledging the expansion brought about by the Free Senior High School policy, the minister admitted that quality assurance has not kept pace.
“The increase of the free senior high school, transformational as it was, was not backed by quality assurance,” he said. “Many of the laboratories are not functioning or are in a very poor state.”
Concerns Over Premature Candidates
The minister also raised concerns about students sitting the BECE before reaching the required level.
“We have also determined that there are students who leave early, not yet in JHS 3, but opt to write for BECE. That is unacceptable by the GES guidelines and the WAEC guidelines,” he said.
“And that is why we are seeing a reflection of poor quality, because the student is not up to their task but forces themselves to want to write BECE, even when they are still in Primary 6 or in JHS1 or JHS2.”
He indicated that stricter enforcement by the Ghana Education Service and the West African Examinations Council would be required.
Alumni Role in Fairness
Mr. Iddrisu also called for stronger involvement of alumni associations in supporting schools and ensuring fairness.
“We also ask the government to recognise alumni associations and to continue to support their management and financial support to many of these second-cycle institutions,” adding that they also play a role in ensuring fairness in some of these processes.”
Implementation Timeline
On implementation, the minister said the reform programme is expected to begin soon.
“By July, we should be done,” he said. “The Honourable Minister for Finance is preparing a joint Cabinet meeting with the Ministry of Education for the approval of the $300 million from the World Bank to support the initiative.”
“We are now doing inventory, and then we are subject to lawful open competitive procurement.”
Recruitment Across the Sector
The minister further disclosed that the government has approved the recruitment of 9,600 personnel across the education sector.
“We have had approval from the Ministry of Finance to recruit about 9,600 teachers in the teacher profession category,” he said. “For the country, 7,000 would be teachers, degree and diploma teachers.”
“Some 1,200 to 1,500 would be for institutions of higher learning to recruit for faculties and to beef up the faculties of the universities,” he added.
“A certain number would be spread across all the universities to recruit at least some 40 to 50 lecturers, depending upon the needs of the university and our capacity as a government in terms of managing the compensation budget of the country.”
Non-Teaching Staff and School Welfare
He added that recruitment would also cover non-teaching roles critical to school operations.
“We also will allow for the recruitment of what we call non-teaching staff, drivers, matrons, accountants, and then security,” he said.
He further said recruitment will include non-teaching roles such as drivers, matrons, accountants, and security. He also noted concerns over school welfare, explaining that many schools lack security personnel and proper oversight for food provision.
Overall, Mr. Iddrisu confirmed that 9,600 personnel would be recruited within the Ministry of Education and its agencies.
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Source: www.myjoyonline.com