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Dean of the School of Performing Arts of the University of Ghana, Professor Kofi Agyekum, has thrown his full support to the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) which is a system for placing Junior High School students in Senior High Schools (SHS) and Senior High Technical Schools (SHTS).

Although thought to be a good initiative, this CSSPS is however criticized as being full of problems.

There are some parents and guardians who complain bitterly about their children or wards having been placed in schools which are not their first choices or schools at remote areas.

Abolish Unfair CSSPS

Wading into this discussion is the former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Prof. Philip Ebow Bondzi-Simpson, who wants heads of schools to be allowed to admit students into their schools just as authorities at the basic and the tertiary levels do.

Speaking at the Mfantsipim Stakeholders Forum in Cape Coast, on Monday, the Founding Dean of the UCC Law Faculty indicated that the Computerized School Selection and Placement System is destroying traditions of schools and hurting them.

He indicated that if in Ghana, out of all the levels of schools, it is only the secondary school that there’s computer placement, then, there’s the need for the stakeholders in education to evaluate it and change such a system.

The Mfantsipim Forum is a forum initiated by the school, its old boys, the church and other stakeholders to think about the school and the educational system.

Prof Bondzi-Simpson intimated that the system put in place to admit the students, should take into account old boys/girls of the schools, children of staff, a consideration of the members of the church and small amount of protocol, adding that it’s out of place to centralize a placement system that disadvantages those who have been contributing to the growth and development of the school.

Prof. Bondzi-Simpson believes the system is unfair and destroying the traditions of the school, apart from the human interferences in the process that are putting many stakeholders of the school at a greater disadvantage.

But despite all these concerns, Prof. Kofi Agyekum, popularly called Opanyin Agyekum, is admonishing authorities not to cancel the CSSPS.

According to him, contrary to criticisms that it is problematic, the CSSPS has made it "easy for parents and students in the choice of schools. It's also reduced the pressure that used to mount on Heads of the SHSs and people of influence to place students in their suitable schools".

Opanyin Agyekum also asked "parents to stop compelling their children to attend schools they attended or see the schools with big names as the only good schools," hence when their wards are placed in a different school based on their performance, it becomes an issue.

To him, the "CSSPS is the best option for placement of students in schools."