According to the Deputy Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, the number represents more than 100 percent increase in what has been recorded in previous years.

[contextly_sidebar id=”RrkW0Siu0cHfNiXZVOJlbwVhIsaJ0jAT”]Addressing the media to provide an update on the ongoing SHS placement process, he said the increase was due to the Free SHS program initiative introduced by the New Patriotic Party government.

“This year, because of the Free SHS, there is an increase in the number of people who applied; over 10,000. In the previous year, it has been about 3,000. And every one of them was included in the computer selection process. No child has been left behind in terms of those who were willing to go back to school,” he said.

Release of funds to schools

Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum said the Ministry was engaging the Heads of the various Senior High Schools, to draw a road-map for the release of funds to cover the cost of education of all the Free SHS beneficiaries.

The Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS), has said they are yet to receive funds to cater for the freshers.

Other stakeholders including the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), have urged the government to make the funds available to the schools before it reopens for the 2017/2018 academic year on 11^th September, 2017 to avoid interference in the academic calendar.

But the Minister is optimistic all the needed resources would be made available to the schools on time.

“We’ve given them guidelines as to funds that will come to them and funds that will not come to them and the resources that we’ll send to them,” he said, adding that the government will provide Free SHS resources for first-year students only.

He also reassured parents and prospective Senior High School students that they will be placed in schools they personally choose.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Over 10,000 past JHS graduates placed in SHS appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The Association believes that the Service must consider the challenges being experienced on its website by the students to provide ample time to enable every qualified student to select their preferred school.

The Vice President of NAGRAT, Angel Carbonu, told Richard Sky on Eyewitness News that the challenges being experienced with this year’s placement process was not surprising but GES must allow students ample time to access their placement information online.

“I am not too comfortable with the 48-hour deadline that was given. Let us extend the time. Let us recognize that we are dealing with a human situation of preference and choice,” he said.

Barely 24 hours after the Ghana Education Service (GES) announced that it had released the placements for students who took the 2017 BECE, the website set up for parents and their wards to check their Senior High School (SHS) admissions list suffered technical hitches.

Persons seeking to access the website were greeted with error notices or secured access after several attempts.

According to some prospective SHS students, the situation has created a lot of inconvenience for them as they have to make regular visits to internet cafes to try to access their placements online.

Others who have not been placed yet are also frustrated they have to beat a 48-hour deadline given by the GES to make their preferred choice of school from options provided on the website.

Mr. Carbonu says the despite the challenges being experienced, he is optimistic the academic calendar will not be negatively affected.

Free SHS

Mr. Carbonu said the various schools were ready to receive students as the Free SHS program is rolled out, but he cautioned government to establish terms of payment with the various schools to avoid challenges during the academic term.

He advised that government to pay all Senior High Schools monies to cover the education of all the students before the start of the academic year.

“Let us not wait till the reopening. Let us make sure that we have an agreed timeline, either a month or two weeks before school reopens, money should be released to the schools. We the teachers know what our job is… As far as teaching and learning materials are available, we are ready to teach.”

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Extend SHS placement deadline – NAGRAT to GES appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

According to him, the challenge, which is due to overwhelmed system servers have been recurrent over the years and there was the need for the managers of the system to put in place measures to ensure that the system could cope with heavy website traffic.

[contextly_sidebar id=”GOWRFIfnwYehJB9MtO1YKSwejTt4dY5D”]Barely 24 hours after the Ghana Education Service (GES) announced that it had released the placements for students who took the 2017 BECE, the website advertised to enable parents and their wards access their Senior High School (SHS) admissions notices has been suffering intermittent downtime.

Those who sought to access the website were met with  error notices or managed to get in after several attempts.

According to some prospective SHS students, the situation inconvenienced them as they had to make regular visits to internet cafes to try to access their placements online.

Others who have not been placed yet are also frustrated they have to beat a 48-hour deadline given by the GES to make their preferred choice of school from options provided on the website.

Many fear the current situation may negatively impact the educational calendar for SHSs this year, but Mr. Yaw Amoateng says the development “is really not something new”.

“Every year whenever the results are out and there is school placement, we go through this ritual…  I think at the time of the system development, we should have anticipated that this challenge was going to occur at this time. Maybe to see how much load the system was going to take,” he said on Eyewitness News.

Explaining the situation, he said a cursory assessment of the challenges being experienced  “impacts on traffic because all of a sudden we have so many people who want to access the information on the site which is not originally designed to accommodate that number of people. There is a lot of traffic and the system is unable to support it.”

While indicating his optimism that the system was being worked on by its managers, he suggested that “Multiple access points could be created so that people can access the information through different routes. Alternatively, you can look at a scalable system so that as and when the traffic comes in, you scale it up to accommodate.”

We’re working to address the problem – Gov’t

Meanwhile, the government says it is working to overcome the Internet-based challenges that have plagued the Computerized School Selection Placement Secretariat (CSSPS), and frustrated Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) graduates trying to beat the deadline for placement.

Addressing the press on Monday, a Deputy Minister of Education in charge of pre-Tertiary Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, said the government shared in the anxiety of parents and is working to resolve the technical challenges.

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By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post SHS placement challenges should’ve been anticipated – Analyst appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.