The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) is urging the Ghana Education Service to extend the deadline for prospective Senior High School (SHS) students who have not been placed in any school to reapply.
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.”