As many as 1,211 candidates who recently finished Junior High School have yet to be placed in Senior High Schools. Ms. Benedicta Naana Biney, Acting Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), addressing a press conference in Accra said 172,359 candidates qualified for placement based on vacancies declared by the various heads of SHS nationwide. The GES on Friday released the 2010 Computerized School Selection and Placement (CSSP) for SHS. Ms Biney said 171,148 candidates, representing 98.8 per cent of the qualified candidates had been successfully placed leaving 1,211 students yet to be placed. She explained that the unplaced candidates had various problems including the fact that schools they had chosen did not have boarding facilities to cater for candidates from other districts, while others could not meet the cut-off point of their six chosen schools. Ms. Biney assured parents that the necessary arrangements were being made to ensure placements for all the candidates, and the GES expected all first year SHS students to be in school by October 15, to help facilitate the placement of the unplaced candidates. She said all Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates could know their school placements by texting their index numbers followed by either 07, 08, 09 or 10 which represent their respective examination year to SMS Short Code 1060 to all mobile networks. Ms. Biney said the supplementary placement for all qualified but unplaced candidates would be available by October 20, meanwhile, with effect from this year, the placement form would be accessed on the internet and each successful candidate was required to print out his or her placement form from the internet using a GES scratch card purchased at four Ghana cedis and presented to the SHS for admission. However, she admitted that though the CSSPS had gone through several challenges over the past six years of its existence, strenuous efforts with support and collaboration of partners including the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS), Regional Directors of Education, Parents, Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS), General Managers of Educational Units and Representatives from Private Tertiary Institutions, had resulted in eliminating major problems associated with the system. Ms Biney said as part of efforts to enhance the system, stakeholders proposed for the adoption of a policy shift in the placement process, leading to the adoption of the CSSPS Policy Guidelines. She said the 2010 CSSPS applied the policy guidelines for the selection based on four core subjects including English Language, Mathematics, Integrated Science and Social Studies and one other best elective subject of the candidate, making a total of five subjects. “For Technical Institutes the subjects are English Language, Mathematics, Integrated Science, Basic Design and Technology and one other best elective subject”, she said. Ms. Biney explained that the 2010 placement system in addition, used the total processed raw scores of five subjects instead of grades of each candidate for the selection and called on the media to facilitate the education of the public, by partnering with the GES in its week-long public education drive on the entire CSSPS system. She appealed to parents to accept the placement system and cooperate with the GES in its effort to eliminate the stress that had characterised previous exercises, and urged them to address all concerns at the CSSPS Secretariat. Source: GNA