Education Research and Policy Analyst, Divine Kpe, has called for reforms to the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) to prevent students who do not meet the required grades from selecting Category A schools.

According to him, the high demand for Category A schools is putting significant pressure on the placement system and contributing to the challenges experienced by students and parents during the exercise.

Speaking on JoyNews The Pulse on Tuesday, September 8, Mr Kpe said the Ministry of Education must examine data from the current placement exercise to determine whether students selecting Category A schools have the grades required for admission.

He noted that the introduction of the policy allowing students to know their examination results before selecting schools provides an opportunity to address the issue.

“If it is about system misuse, they have not qualified, I think the system can be improved, where you enter your grade, and the system should be able to restrict you not to proceed if your grade has not matched up to the criteria of that particular school,” he said.

Mr Kpe cited the significant disparity between the number of available places and the number of students seeking admission to Category A schools.

He said while the available capacity was about 76,000 places, more than 300,000 learners had selected Category A schools.

He believes the Ministry must establish whether the high number of selections is driven by students who genuinely qualify for those schools or by students who are selecting institutions despite not meeting the required criteria.

“Is it the case that learners are abusing the system, they know that they do not qualify for placement in those schools but went ahead to select them?” he asked.

Mr Kpe said the Ministry should be able to extract and analyse the relevant data to determine the extent of the problem and use the findings to improve the placement process.

System should guide school selection

The analyst argued that integrating students' grades into the school selection process could help make the system more efficient.

Under such a system, a student's results could be checked against the admission requirements of a selected school before the choice is submitted.

This, he believes, would prevent students who do not meet the required criteria from choosing highly competitive schools and subsequently facing disappointment during the placement exercise.

He said such a measure could also help reduce pressure on schools with limited capacity and minimise the number of students seeking assistance at placement centres.

Mr Kpe, however, acknowledged that there would always be high demand for better-performing schools.

He said the objective should not necessarily be to eliminate competition for Category A schools but to ensure that the competition is based on realistic and eligible choices.