Education

Faulty School Selection Software hinders correct SHS selection for 2019 BECE candidates

Although the 2019 BECE has been written, the faulty School Selection Software which many schools used in inputting schools selected by candidates will hinder the correct SHS selection for 2019 BECE candidates.

BECE candidates who sat for the just ended 2019 examination have their hopes of gaining admissions to the schools of choice in limbo.

The second cycle school selection software which is suppose to aid schools make the correct inputs based on choices made by parents and guardians did not have all the schools that were available to candidates to be selected at the time of inputting schools into the system.

This affected schools in the category D section. Hence many schools could not select the exact schools that their candidates selected as their last choice. This problem which was detected by many schools could not be rectified hence they had to use them just to ensure they do not miss the deadline for submission.

Category D schools are compulsory day schools that every candidate is expected to choose from.

Sadly, the software only one or few schools for candidates out of the over 500 day schools which were to be available in the system for easy selection under the category.

For instance while one basic school has only Tema Senior High under category D in its software downloaded from the registration site, another had have only Achimota Senior High

For each of these schools, it became a compulsory that all its candidates must select Achimota as their last choice so as to enable each candidate to be able to complete the selection process and to facilitate the easy processing and submission of the schools to the WAEC exams Units across the country.

Another challenge is that, some schools were unable to upload their schools selected because; there the exams unit and WEAC did not give any grace period. The school file uploading site was locked right on the 1^st of July hence some schools were not able to complete the registration process.

The new school selection system which ensures that, candidates complete the writing of the BECE before selecting schools must be stopped as it puts unnecessary pressure on schools.

It is prudent to ensure that, the school selection and all other related processes are completed before the BECE is written in 2020 to help deal with these avoidable challenges.

The GES and WAEC should also ensure that, the software for registering BECE candidates are test at least three times by calling on sampled schools to enter their data so as we can detect these faults and help the developers make the necessary changes before they are uploaded onto the site for schools to access.

If the necessary corrections are not doe and Basic schools are not given the chance to correct the selections they have made for their students in the category D – day schools. Many of the community day schools and all other schools that have day students will have less candidates being placed for day in their schools.

In the end, many candidates may be forced to do self placement which will create a lot of avoidable pressure when the schools into which candidates have been placed for the free SHS are released. WAEC, GES and all concerned, let us deal with this now.

The implication is that all pupils have a different school selected by their parents for D schools but they are all been forced to choose the same schools because the other schools they preferred are not available in the system.

We call on WAEC, GES and all other relevant stakeholders to rectify the anomaly and give schools the chance to re-select the schools to correspond with what parents chose for their wards without delay in the best interest of our children, our education and the country.