The recent confusion about placement of Basic Education Certificate Examination graduates into senior high, technical and vocational schools points to the fact that we are either not learning and improving upon the process in the application of technology or that there are deviants and miscreants along the chain who deliberately undermine the system to create openings for corruptible practices or alternatively that parents and teachers are passive about the process.
Otherwise after all these years of implementation, the errors should have been erased or diminished, rather than the upsurge we have seen over the years.
There is no technology that does not need enhancement from time to time from usage, without attrition.
Improve
Therefore, in adopting the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) there was the awareness to continuously improve upon the system to reduce human intervention. But the opposite has been the trend.
We need to pause and analyse developments to establish exactly what causes the misplacement of pupils, for instance girls or boys being placed in exclusively sex restricted schools.
There are even claims of pupils placed in schools they never selected, of specialised nature or as day students in schools outside their home regions or where they are domiciled.
Results
When the Ministry of Education (MOE) through the Ghana Education Service (GES) introduced the policy that school selection would take place after results were released, some frowned upon it whilst others welcomed it.
Those who frowned upon it argued that it would promote discrimination and segregation based on the BECE scores, when it is established that some students cheat or are helped to pass the examination.
The concomitant has been that some of such average students end up in grade A schools, where the teachers take it easy on assumption that the students could make it on their own,
For those who welcomed the move, the feeling was that at least pupils could be guided to select schools based on their results such that the situation of large numbers missing out on schools because they did not pass well will diminish.
However, what happened this year suggests that public officials at the GES, parents and teachers did not do as it was expected of them.
There are parents and teachers who have fixation about certain schools and might have encouraged the pupils to select such schools since in any event, it is easier buying your way through to a school which the student selected but missed than a school they never selected.
It must be noted that parents and teachers have huge responsibilities in guiding pupils to select appropriate schools.
That is why the MOE, through the GES, must meaningfully engage pupils, parents, teachers and school management in public education about the SHS selection programme before the next exercise commences next year.
More imperative is the need for thorough and comprehensive review of the CSSPS and to take into consideration pupils from poorly resourced or disadvantaged schools to ensure a proper mixture of the calibre of students as averaged in the national score.
There must be additional parameters in the CSSPS system that will help distinguish the category of schools based on sex, ability, day or boarding.
By the way, what happened to the policy of reserving 30 per cent of admissions to qualified pupils in the catchment area of the schools respectively?
President John Evans Atta Mills was so passionate and had a deep attachment to the policy which offered incentive to communities which sacrifice land for such public projects and help promote equitable development.
Definitely a functional approach to the policy will lie outside the CSSPS, since technology cannot identify such necessities unless it is woven into and programmed separately to do so.
Quota
The policy of reserved quota for such pupils is critical in the same way that in negotiating certain international contracts, we require local content, by way of technology transfer and manpower engagement to benefit communities.
Moreover, the presence of pupils from the catchment area of the schools could minimise student destructions during demonstrations since there will be a sense of belongingness and ownership.
Parents and teachers would be more responsive to the needs of students to avert or reduce agitations that culminate in demonstrations.
The solution to the annual confusion about placement of pupils into secondary, technical and vocational institutions must be a shared and collective responsibility involving public officials at the GES and the CSSPS, parents and pupils, teachers and school managements.
Introspection
Each of them must do an introspection and make a commitment to play active roles in the process to streamline the placements, otherwise, we would be repeating the same grievous errors and come to the same confusion, for as Rita Brown has noted significantly, " insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the results to be different".
One more thing, the GES should not be quick to dismiss complaints of bribery and corruptible practices whenever they are raised by parents against admission officials.
The fact that two suspects have been arrested means that parents are not just crying wolf because of their frustrations.
The GES must have a listening ear and be slow to retort and defend its officers because as someone has said, " God gave us two ears and one mouth so that we can listen more than we must talk".
Let the mass media saturate information about the prosecution of the two suspects arrested for allegedly taking bribe in changing schools for the pupils involved, within the public sphere from their first appearance in court, their pleadings, the full trial and final judgment, so that it will serve as a deterrent and a yardstick for the process to be effective, efficient, transparent and of high integrity.
The placement exercise must equally be expanded to all the district directorates of the GES.
