CSSPS Goes Live Sunday - 343,264 Automatically Placed

The 2020 Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) into senior high, technical and vocational schools, will be live Sunday, February 28, 2021.

Out of the total number of 533,693 registered candidates, 494,530 candidates qualified to be placed.

Automatically placed

In all, a total of 343,264 candidates have automatically been placed in one of their choices, while 151,266 qualified candidates could not be matched with any of their choices.

A statement signed by the Head of the Public Relations Unit of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Ms Cassandra Twum Ampofo, said “all such students are therefore, to do self-placement to select from available schools.

“To access the placement platform, candidates are to obtain a placement pin code from an approved vendor, log onto the site www.cssps.gov.gh, enter the 10-digit index number and add 20 as year of completion,” the statement explained.

It said for instance that if a student’s index number was 1234567890, 20 would be added to the number to make it 123456789020, “then enter the pin code details (serial number and pin), click on submit and wait for placement to show up.”

The candidate, the statement added, should print the form, if placed, and visit the school to begin the admission process.

Self-placement

“If a student is not matched with any of their choices from the automatic placement system, they will be redirected to the self-placement portal.

“From the portal, select a school by providing the region, residential preference, school, programme of choice, click on submit, print the form and visit the school to begin admission process ,” the statement directed.

It explained that schools selected on the self-placement portal could be changed as many times as candidates wished on the portal until they enrolled in a school.

Assurance

“Management of the Ghana Education Service (GES) wishes to assure all students, especially, those who could not be matched with their choices during the automatic placement, parents and the general public that all schools with vacancies have been uploaded on the portal for students to select from during self-placement without hitches.

“The public is also informed that the National Solution Centre will not be set up this year due to COVID-19. Instead, the GES Call Centre will be active to receive complaints and concerns,” the statement said.

It gave the call centre numbers as 0900800700 and 0302987654.

Delays

Earlier last week, the Director-General of the GES, Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa explained that the placement of candidates under the CSSPS had, over the years, always been done two or three weeks to the reopening of schools, and “this year’s is no different”.

“Usually we give them some two or three weeks to prepare to go to school and we wanted to keep to that,” he said.

Prof. Opoku-Amankwa also explained that there had been no delay in the placement, as some people were speculating, saying the same format that was used during the pre-COVID-19 era was what the GES had stuck to this year.

He said the period of waiting after the results were released afforded the GES to engage with the WAEC to ensure that majority of the candidates whose results were withheld had the results released to them.

On December 16, last year when WAEC released the results, 977 candidates had their subject results withheld, pending the outcome of investigations.