Koforidua, Sept. 9, GNA - Mr M. Nsowaah, Acting Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, has emphasized the need for intense guidance and counselling at the junior secondary school (JSS) level. This he said would direct both candidates and parents in the choice of schools under a new Computerized Selection and Placement System to be adopted in the placement of Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) candidates into senior secondary schools as from the next academic year.

"Junior secondary schools that do not have 'Guidance and Counselling' units should set them up as a matter of urgency to facilitate the smooth running of the new system," he stressed. Mr Nsowaah, who raised this concern in an address read for him at the opening of a two-day Regional Selection and Placement Committee Meeting for the 2004/5 academic year at Koforidua on Wednesday, said under the placement system, candidates would be required to make a fourth choice in case their scores did not qualify them for admission into schools of their first three choices.

He said the new system would utilize the "raw scores" obtained rather than the manual system, which relied on the BECE grades. Mrs Ewurabena Ahwoi, Eastern Regional Director of Education, announced that 16,063 candidates, who obtained between aggregate six and 30 in the region, had qualified to be admitted into various senior secondary schools (SSS) and technical institutions. A total of 30,645 pupils sat for the BECE in the region in June this year, as against 15,058 last year.

She said last year 10,302 of those who qualified gained places in schools and urged parents to be patient and allow the exercise run smoothly.