Wednesday, January 4, 2012

CSSPS faces more problems

Story: Hadiza Nuhhu-Billa Quansah
The problems associated with0 this year’s Computerised Schools Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) do not seem to be over yet.
Despite the directive from the Ghana Education Service(GES) to first-year students to report to their various schools on October 31, some students could not find their names on the noticeboards of the schools in which they had been placed and were therefore turned away.
It will be recalled that the CSSPS Secretariat directed that candidates who were successfully placed should print out their admission letters and raw scores from the Internet using a GES scratch card and send them to their respective senior high schools (SHSs) or technical institutions (TIs).
Some parents complained to the Junior Graphic that although they had printed copies of their children’s admission letters from the CSSPS website as directed, they could not locate their children’s names when they got to the schools.
Mama Jane, for instance, who sent her child to the Benkum SHS in the Eastern Region did not find her daughter’s name on the noticeboard. She said when she enquired from the school authorities, she was told there was nothing the school could do once the name was not on the school’s list.
“I find it so unfortunate, because after taking the risk to travel with my daughter I had to come home without any prospectus. All her friends have gone to school. Therefore, the poor girl keeps crying all day,” she lamented.
The situation was not different at the Labone SHS, Holy Child, Accra Girls SHS, and Apam SHS among others. The Junior Graphic chanced upon some parents at the CSSPS Secretariat and the GES who had gone to these schools without finding their children’s names there.
When the National Co-ordinator of the CSSPS, Mr Samuel Oppong, was contacted by the Junior Graphic, he advised that all affected candidates should go back to the schools in which they had been and insist on their admission because once the child had the printed admission and raw scores, “it means he or she had been formally placed in that school”.
He said he had also received similar complaints and asked those involved to go back to the schools. He explained that the Minister of Education had sent letters to the school heads to adhere to the CSSPS admissions.
“I therefore do not understand why some schools are making things so difficult for parents, prospective students and the secretariat as a whole,” Mr Oppong said.
Some of the heads who would like to remain anonymous explained in an interview that they were going strictly by the names that were given to them by the CSSPS, therefore, parents who did not find the names of their children on the noticeboards should go back to the secretariat and demand answers.
A tour around some of the SHSs showed that majority of the Form One students had reported to their various schools with some undergoing orientation to enable them to familiarise themselves with their chosen programmes and their new schools.

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