Samuel Oppong, former Coordinator of the Computerised School Selection Placement System (CSSPS), has observed that the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy is a good initiative that will alleviate the hardship of most parents in the country, however, the method used in placing the students to the senior high schools is problematic.

According to him, the CSSPS secretariat, this year, veered off the normal practice of placing the students two or three times by engaging in the exercise once. This situation, he said, has resulted in the inability of most of the students to secure placement.

The placement of students into senior high schools this year has been bedeviled with several challenges, including the posting of students to schools for the deaf and dumb, as well as others not being placed at all, but efforts are being made to address the difficulties.

The Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Education, Otoo Plaha, told Class 91.3FM's Valentina Ofori-Afriyie on Wednesday, September 6 that: “We have some people who still have not been placed, and we will see whether we will move the time a bit up. There were some few people who had challenges with the placement. Some people were placed to the school for the deaf and dumb, those are issues that will be taken on and corrected.

“Some have not gotten the schools at all and so we are working on them to see that everybody is placed before we move forward.”

Commenting on this issue on the Ghana Yensom morning show on Accra 100.5FM on Thursday, September 7 Mr Oppong said: “The Free SHS Coordinator is interfering in the works of the Coordinator of the CSSPS and that has resulted in some of the problems we are seeing now.

“It looks as if there is overlapping somewhere and that is not the best. The Free SHS policy is good, there is no problem with it but the problem I have now is the method they are using for the placement this year, and I have to be very honest about that.

“I will urge the government to separate the Free SHS secretariat from the CSSPS. It looks as if they are not giving the current National Coordinator of the CSSSPS the free hand to run the system. If there are two pilots in the same plane they are bound to crash.”