By Laudia Sawer
Tema, Sept. 10, GNA – Mr John Ashirifie, the Examinations Coordinator for the Tema Metro Education Directorate, has advised parents to consider the performance and capabilities of their children to inform the second-cycle institution they choose for them.
Mr Ashirifie said that even though the result of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) would not be released before the selection of schools, parents and guardians should consult the teachers of their children, to know their true class performances before selecting schools, to ensure that they got placement without any problem.
“Go to the schools and find out the actual performance of your children from their teachers, because if you ask them how the exam went, none of them will tell you it was difficult; unfortunately, you won’t see the result before choosing,” he stressed.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr Ashirifie said parents must also carefully cross-check the combinations of schools they choose, to avoid any complications with the placement of their wards.
He explained that this time around, the applicants were to select 11 schools instead of the previous six; nothing that the main selection had to do with selecting six schools; “when the system takes them through by merit and they are not able to place them in any of the six, then they have another form known as the cluster, which has five schools in which they will be considered for placement”.
In addition, if the applicants were not placed in any of the 11 schools, then they would be required to do a self-placement, Mr Ashirifie said.
“Look through the guideline for the first form, in which you are to select six schools and arrange them in preference; there is a booklet with the JHS schools that has all the 938-second cycle schools in Ghana,” he said.
He urged parents to pay attention to the code of the school of their choice, as failure to do so could lead to choosing a different school other than the one they wanted.
He stressed that the system allowed for only one school to be selected from the category A schools due to their limited number of 98 and the fact that they were often overly subscribed, adding that it was not compulsory to pick from category A if parents felt their children were not up to the requirement.
The exam coordinator added that up to two schools are also allowed to be chosen from Category B, which he added is also not compulsory, while the remaining should be picked from Category C schools.
He, however, advised that some of the category B schools are overly subscribed, so when chosen as second and third choices, the child is likely to miss them if they miss their first choice.
He said the sixth school to be chosen is compulsory to be within 16 kilometres radius of the basic school the child attended and day status, stating, for instance, that if the basic school was in Tema, then schools within Kpone, Lashibi, Nungua, Ashaiman, and Teshie could be selected as the sixth school.
“If the child was staying with you as house help and going back to where they are coming from, and so you can’t choose from the catchment area, then you have Appendix Three in the booklet, which are known as the special boarding schools, which always have vacancies in their dormitories after every selection annually; so instead of choosing day as required for the sixth school that one will be boarding,” he explained.
He said all five schools to choose on the second form to make the 11 choices must be selected from the 420 schools listed in Appendix Four of the school selection booklet.
Mr Ashirifie stated that children who wanted to enrol in Technical and Vocational Educational Training (TVET) schools, must check Appendix One for the learning areas before choosing, adding that Appendix Two also contained secondary technical schools and their learning areas, while Appendix Five had the special schools in Ghana to take care of children with special needs such as hearing and sight impairment.
Again, Appendix Six contained Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, which were for those interested in pursuing STEM-based courses such as robotics and aerospace.
The exam coordinator also urged parents to look at Appendix Seven and Eight respectively, for single-track and transitional (double-track) schools.
He reminded parents that the government had changed the programmes to learning areas, indicating that visual arts had been taken out and replaced with arts to enable those who wanted to go into performing arts, studio works, and other related courses to do so.
He announced that those who would be going to the second cycle first year would be awarded a diploma at the end of their course instead of the West Africa Senior School Certificate.
GNA