The Public Relations Officer at the Ghana Education Ministry Paul Krampah has defended new rankings for the performance of Senior High Schools whose students wrote the 2013 West Africa Senior Secondary School Examination.

The new rankings have sparked huge controversy after popular SHSs were displaced from the top 50 with relatively unknown schools occupying the first ten.

The Mount Carmel Girls’ Senior High School in the Brong Ahafo Region topped the 2013 West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) by scoring 100 per cent in the examination.

The Koforidua Senior High Technical School scored 99.39 per cent with a respectable fourth place finish.

Kade Day Senior High Technical School scored 99.34 per cent in fifth place and the St. James Seminary had 99.29 per cent and placed sixth.

There were little surprises for Wesley Girls and Adisadel College which occupied second and seventh positions respectively.

But for Top schools including Mfantsipim School, Aburi Girls’ SHS, Presbyterian Boys’ SHS, Prempeh College, Accra Academy and Achimota School the rankings were not favorable as they placed 39th 44th, 52nd, 54th, 59th and 78th respectively out of 716 schools.

A number of the top schools have begun questioning the criteria for the rankings.

Heads of some of the top schools told Joy News the sheer numbers of candidates they presented for the exams were far too huge as compared to some of the private schools which presented very few candidates for the exams.

 They insist the rankings did not take into consideration the ratio of students that sat for the exams.

But speaking with Joy News' Evans Mensah the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Education Paul Krampah said the rankings were meticulously done.

He argued the Statistics, Research, Information, Management and Public Relations (SRIMPR) Division of the Ministry of Education looked at the overall results of the candidates who scored between A1 to C6 and ranked them as such.

He said disparities in the total number of candidates presented by individual schools for the exams could not possibly be cited as reasons for non-performance by some top schools.

According to him, the Statistics team also looked at the performance of the each student, prior to admission into the SHS and compared it with the final WASSCE results, saying, some of the students got admission into some of the less fancied schools with aggregate 25 but ended up with A1-in-chains results at the SHS level.

"Ratios are not the issue," he argued, "it is the final performance."

But a former Director General of the GES Michael Nsowa disagreed with the argument by the Ministry's PRO.

He said large numbers of candidates have an effect on academic performance and the entire rankings.

He said it is even a challenge teaching students with higher population than handling those with smaller populations.

He was however quick to add that the less fancied schools who performed incredibly well in the rankings should be commended and be reminded to be consistent.