Education Minister Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh has assured parents and students that all the over 150,000 out of a total of 460,941 qualified Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates who did not get placement in senior high schools, will definitely get placements in schools where vacancies exist.

Already the Ghana Education Service (GES) has extended the window of placement by another 48 hours after it discovered that over 150,000 qualified candidates had still not been placed, 24 hours after the initial deadline expired.

An initial 48-hour window given fell on a holiday and also on the weekend thus necessitating another 48-hour extension. The affected students now have up to Tuesday, September 5 to complete the placement processes.

“…For those who have not been placed in any of their for options, we are asking them to continue to select schools on Monday [September 4] and Tuesday [September 5]. By next week Tuesday, we will do our review to assess the situation and take the next decision,” the acting Director-General of the GES, Professor Kwesi Opoku-Amankwa said in an interview.

“By Monday and Tuesday, we are expecting that they will be able to purchase the card and then go online to either print their admission forms or select a school,” he told Accra-based Citi FM, explaining that the GES could have done the placement by itself, “but this time around, we are giving them the option to do what we call self-placement.”

Speaking to Moro Awudu on Class91.3FM’s Executive Breakfast Show on Monday, 4 August, Dr Opoku Prempeh said the situation whereby some candidates do not get placement is not unusual.

“There is nothing wrong with that. For years, it happens that some don’t get the schools they choose. It’s not the first time it is happening. In fact, since time immemorial, even going to the university, some students don’t get the courses they choose and they have to choose a different course so that is a normal thing. What we used to hear every year was that those who didn’t get their choices were placed by the CSSPS in certain schools and there was uproar around the country from students who claim they didn’t choose those schools and they were being put there, from parents who were not in favour of the schools their wards have been placed, and also frankly some people live in another part of the country and they were being put in day schools in another part of the country. So what we’ve done this year after placing all those who got a choice of their own is that those who didn’t get any of these schools that they wanted to go to, are being given a second chance to go and visit the website and choose from a school that the vacancy exists.

“The second batch that is left, obviously most of our big schools are full now but there are three options with the Ghana Education Service category and there are still existing vacancies in many schools so you pick and choose a school that there is a vacancy and we’ll place you there.

Asked if “certainly there is vacancy to accommodate everybody who is qualified to go to senior high school”, Dr Opoku Prempeh said: “Yes”.