Special needs basic schools will be included in the Free SHS program - GES

 

Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) says plans are underway for public special needs basic schools to be included in the government flagship policy Free Senior High School.

Speaking on Peace FM’s Kokrokoo show monitored by EducationWeb, the Director-General said the central government in due course will communicate more details on the development to members of the general public.

“We have the majority of special needs schools at the basic level and what we are planning is to add them to the Free SHS policy even though they are basic schools and because they are special,” Mr Opoku-Amankwa told Sefa Kayi.

Describing the 2021 school placement as smooth and successful, the GES Director-General said a total of 505,675 BECE students have been placed in various schools with 7,700 students yet to be placed in their preferred schools.

The Ghana Education Service (GES) official however said despite the enormous number of prospective students who qualified for computer school placement only 324 have successfully been enrolled in various public schools.

In other news, a Professor has called on the Ministry of Education (MoE) to cancel the Computerized School Placement System (CSSPS) for placing Junior High School (JHS) graduates in public Senior High/Technical schools.

Speaking at the Mfantsipim Stakeholders Forum in Cape Coast, Prof Philip Ebow, suggested heads of public second cycle schools should be allowed to admit students into their schools just like done at the basic and tertiary levels.

Mr Ebow in his address said that the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) is destroying the traditions of schools and hurting them, thus the need for the Education Ministry to review the school initiative.

“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 a small amount of protocol,” he told stakeholders at the Forum.

He stressed that the computerized school placement is destroying the traditions of the school saying that “apart from the human interferences in the process that are putting many stakeholders of the school at a greater disadvantage.”

CREDIT: Educationweb