The Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS) is calling for the complete scrapping of the 15% priority placement allocation in the Senior High School (SHS) placement system.

The association argues that the policy gives students from public basic schools an advantage over those from private schools in securing placement in preferred second-cycle institutions.

First Vice President of GNAPS, Justice King Essel, said reducing the allocation from 30% to 15% does not address the concerns of private schools and called for a placement system that gives all students equal opportunities.

Speaking on Citi FM on Saturday, September 12, he said the priority placement policy was originally introduced to give students from deprived communities better access to schools within or close to their communities.

He, however, argued that defining deprivation largely on the basis of whether a child attends a public or private school was problematic.

“Unfortunately, the deprived schools have been wrongly defined. So the impression being created is that when people attend public schools, then that means that they are coming from low-income groups. But that is not correct,” he said.

Mr Essel said some private schools also operate in deprived communities under difficult conditions and should therefore not be excluded from policies designed to support disadvantaged students.

He further warned that the priority placement policy could undermine the sustainability of private schools by encouraging parents to move their children from private schools to public schools in the hope of securing better placement opportunities.

According to him, declining enrolment could make it increasingly difficult for some private schools to pay teachers and meet their operational costs, particularly those charging relatively low fees.

“And so these actions go a long way to prevent these schools from growing, and so that means that you are helping to collapse them,” he said.

Mr Essel maintained that access to SHS placement should be based on equal opportunity rather than the type of basic school a student attended.

He urged the government to reconsider the priority placement arrangement and adopt a system that treats students from public and private schools fairly.