The Ghana Education Service (GES) has instituted measures to address bottlenecks associated with the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) to make it more efficient and reliable. Among the measures is the categorization of Senior High Schools (SHS) into seven groups to make selection easy and ease pressure on so called “endowed schools” and the increase in the number of schools chosen by students from three to six to enhance their chances of placement. The Central Regional Director of Education, Ms Rosemond Blay announced this at a media briefing on the changes at Cape Coast on Wednesday. In attendance were district directors of education and heads of Senior High Schools who were asked to explain the changes to parents and guardians. The Regional Director said the CSSPS was introduced to replace the manual system of selection that was characterized with issues of missing cards, wrong choices, rejection of cards, unleashing stress and frustrations on school heads, as well as parents. She said since its introduction in September 2005, the CSSPS has been confronted with challenges. The challenges include students choosing the same school twice, thereby limiting their chances of getting placement even though they have good grades, while some schools are overly subscribed, putting undue pressure on them. Ms Blay said the criteria used in the categorization included facilities, geographical location, gender and cut-off-mark and that, category ‘A’ consists of the list of 65 most endowed schools, while ‘B’ is 72 endowed, ‘C’ and ‘D’, 178 schools each, ‘T’, 26 technical/vocational schools, ‘P’, private SHSs and the last ‘P’ for private technical/vocational institutions. Madam Blay explained that the candidates are restricted to choose only one school in the ‘A’ category and two in category ‘B’ but are free to choose five each in category ‘C’ and ‘D’ and six each in ‘T’, ‘P’ and ‘P’. She said the 30 percent quota system for students from deprived schools was still in operation but will purely be based on merit or performance. She urged the district directors to encourage students in their areas to work hard to enable them qualify. On the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), Ms Blay reminded students that failure to provide the requisite particulars on the answer sheets could affect their grades since such papers are withheld or sometimes cancelled. She urged exams supervisors to closely check to ensure that students completely fill all instructions on their answer sheets. Madam Blay also advised district educational directors to generate documentary of schools in their districts for advertisement to bring to public notice the school’s performances for students to make easy choices. Source: GNA