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Financial Analyst, Sydney Casely-Hayford has slammed the Ghana Education Service for adopting a protocol system in posting fresh students to the various Senior High Schools (SHS) in the country.

The Service reserves a five percent quota for students within communities High Schools are located in the country.

But speaking on Citi FM’s news analysis programme, The Big Issue on Saturday, Casely-Hayford insisted that the policy should be scrapped because it does its discriminatory.

“What kind of sampling is that? It is the argument that is being put forward that we are trying to do this computerized selection so that it is unbiased so that everyone has an equal opportunity, however, there are some people who are more equal than others and we have made allocation for such important people,” he said.

According to him, per the policy, the computerized placement system is not different from the old system where parents go searching for schools for their wards.

“The computerized system is still doing the same thing. People are still manipulating the system and they are begging to be given a placement so you haven’t improved anything. Nothing has changed. They are telling us that they have leveled the playing field but they have not done that, so that part of the whole thing is a lie,” he argued.

But Chairman of the GES Council, Mr. Michael Kenneth Nsowah who also featured on The Big Issue justified the protocol system.

According to him, the constitution enshrines that students from host communities should benefit from the system.

“I think it is a good thing. The constitution provides for it and that won’t be discrimination because the constitution identifies it as an exception to the definition of exception. It [the computer placement system] is substantially in my view automated but there is that exception for other people especially those from the communities where the schools a situated,” he added.

Background

This comes on the back of some hitches the Computerized School Selection Placement System (CSSPS) which is supposed to post the BECE graduates to the various high school have encountered leading to the postponement of the deadline for four times with the new one being the end of September 2017. Some BECE graduates who try accessing the online placement system are met with error notices.

But the government said these problems had been addressed, following the setting up of a new website.

The original website for the self-placement, www.myjhsresult.net, now contains a link that directs users to the new website, www.cssps.gov.gh.

The issues with the CSSPS began when the Ghana Education Service’s (GES) announcement of an extension for the placement of BECE candidates after it emerged that over 100,000 qualified candidates had still not been placed. The GES later asked qualified students who were not placed to go online and select an option available during the extended window.