The Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) is an exam junior high school students take to usher them into Senior High School in Ghana , it is written every year by all public and private schools.
During times like these, Candidates are taught adequately by teachers on how to tackle possible or likely questions that may come .
Before the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) was implemented, student placement and selection in second cycle institutions was done by labor-intensive machines. The manual method required a lot of time and effort. It was also marked by a variety of drawbacks and imperfections, including the misplacing of student registration cards and forms, incorrect index and code number shading by JHS heads and students, excessive admissions delays, and misplaced admission letters.
Moreover, the manual system was quite vulnerable to human deceit and schemes like corruption and bribery. Rich and powerful parents exploited their financial clout to get their children enrolled in prestigious and well-equipped institutions, at the expense of deserving pupils from low-income backgrounds. Similar to this, the manual system’s admissions procedures were beset by the influence and pressure of “old boys” and “old girls” associations, PTA officials, protocol admissions, and the insatiable hunger of certain heads of second cycle institutions.
Furthermore, prior to the implementation of the CSSPS innovation, administrators of prestigious and well-funded schools arbitrarily and unilaterally set high standards for admission and personal cut-off grades in order to draw in only the most talented and exceptionally good students, at the expense of less gifted and rural students. In addition, parents and children had a very bad time during the manual system era when the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) results were released. In order to secure their ward’s spot, anxious parents had to make the trek to the schools of their choice, find out if their child was admitted, and pay the admission price in full. If they didn’t, the spot would be handed to someone else.
Unquestionably, the manual system’s shortcomings rendered it unsuitable for use as a tool for placement and selection. But whether the CSSPS has been able to overcome the shortcomings that were present in the manual method is a commonly questioned subject. What are the difficulties and future directions of Ghana’s computerised school placement and selection systems is the crux of the issue.
The Computerised School Selection and Placement System is known by its abbreviation, CSSPS. The tedious Manual approach of Selection and Placement (MSSP) of qualified BECE candidates into second cycle (Senior High Schools and Technical/Vocational) schools in Ghana was replaced by an automated merit-based computerised approach. The Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ministry of Education (MOE) launched the CSSPS in 2005 as a component of their grand plan of programmes and interventions meant to increase access and raise educational standards through curriculum development and teaching and learning.
With the assistance of development partners and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), among other education stakeholders, programmes and interventions were able to be implemented. The CSSPS was introduced with the primary goals of increasing transparency, fairness, and cost effectiveness as well as streamlining and optimising the process of moving from junior high to senior high school. To these were added the goals of expanding secondary education access and participation as well as guaranteeing fairness and promptness in the placement and selection process.
Candidates must fill out scannable forms and specially designed cards in order to be considered for the CSSPS process. The forms are processed by computer software that was created especially for the system.
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The senior high school, secondary technical, and vocational school placement and selection processes have been computerised since 2005.
Despite multiple assurances from the Ministry of Education, there have been media allegations of corruption. Some of the issues and critiques include the following:
i. Some parents bemoan the fact that their children enrolled in private schools face financial difficulties as a result of the exorbitant tuition costs.
Distance is another issue that students who are placed in distant schools struggle to manage because of the distributive nature of the system.
Another issue is the placement of female students in male schools and vice versa.
Some believe the CSSPS is not functioning effectively, despite the fact that these issues have been linked to the registration procedure in the schools where the majority of students make mistakes in shading incorrectly.
Additionally, it was claimed that some school heads fail to provide candidates with access to the WAEC register, which contains a list of all the schools with assigned codes for accurate shading. It is also stated that approximately 50,000 mistakes were made as a result of the aforementioned difficulties the new system encountered.
And for this ? The Ghana Education System should operate with utmost sincerity and transparency so Junior High School students who are looking forward to enter into the Senior High School have a smooth and seamless process accessing their results as well checking their respective High Schools