Government to address the School Placement System

14-06-2010 Government to address the School Placement System

Narration: Government through the Ministry of Education has instituted stringent measures to address all bottlenecks associated with the computerized School Selection and placement Systems (CSSPS) to make it more efficient and reliable. Among the measures is the categorization of the Senior High School (SHS) into groups to make selection easy and ease pressure on the so called endowed schools and increased in the number of choices of schools from three to six. The Upper East Regional Minister, Mark Woyongo who disclosed this in a speech read for him explained that the move is to ensure that all qualified students get placement. Mr. Woyongo made these known during a budget forum held at Bolgatanga. Isaac Asare has the rest of the story for Radio Ghana.

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Report
The budget forum organized by members of the Northern Patriot in Research and Advocacy, NORPRA was attended by a cross section of the general public, civil society and pressure groups, political analysts, and students from some Second Cycle institutions in the region. It was on the theme: “The 2010 Budget: A Citizen’s Call for Commitment. The aim of the forum was to create a common platform to deliberate and also be informed of government policy interventions for its people and to ensure regional development. Mr. Woyongo who best described education as the panacea for development, outlined government’s interventional policies aimed at improving the country’s educational facilities. This, he noted, are contained in the 2010 budget statement. He stated that challenges such as overcrowding, inadequate classroom furniture and other infrastructure bedeviling the country’s basic and second cycle school levels, would soon be a thing of the past since government has map out strategies to address these problems. In line with this, contracts have been awarded for the construction of new classrooms in all senior High schools to accommodate new entrants come September this year. Moreover, government seeks to provide infrastructural facilities at the basic school level to eliminate the under tree schools and shift system. Touching on employment, Mr. Woyongo revealed that 3500 out of 4000 youth in the region have so far been engaged in under the NYEP of which 100,000 more youth would be engaged in the programme throughout the country. Policy Analyst and Regional Manager of ISODEC, Mr. Jonathan Adabre Atia reminded government to help fulfil its campaign promise of ensuring equity in the distribution of the country’s wealth as contained in the 2010 budget statement. The President of NORPRA, Mr. Bismark Adongo, on his part, charged government to channel most of the revenue accrued from the country’s resources to develop the three regions of the north. Mr. Jeremia Ateng-dem of SEND-Ghana took participants through some government pro poor policies geared at poverty reduction. He stressed the need for clear funding framework and broad base public consultation and input into some of such policies, particularly, the Savanna Accelerated development Authority, SADA.
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