STICK TO DECLARED VACANCIES — CONNEL (MIRROE, PAGE 25, APRIL 1, 2010)

From Joe Okyere, Cape Coast.

THE Headmaster of the St. Augustine’s College, Mr Joseph Connel, has taken a swipe at the Secretariat of the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) for not adhering to the vacancies declared by heads of schools and rather placing higher numbers of students in the schools.
Mr Connel said this virtual one-sided external manipulation of placing more than the required number of students any school could conveniently accommodate at any particular time had become a challenge and headache to the heads of schools.
Mr Connel said this in his report at the 80th Anniversary Speech and Prize-giving Day of the St Augustine’s College in Cape Coast.
He said the CSSPS Secretariat and the Ghana Education Service placed too many students in the college for admission.
“This creates a lot of congestion, inconvenience and discomfort for students, teachers and the administration of the college,” describing the situation as unacceptable, and urging the CSSPS Secretariat to adhere to the number of vacancies declared by heads for general sanity to prevail in the current system of admitting students to schools.
The headmaster said the system, expected to address certain problems and make admission of the students to schools quite smooth for the school administrators and parents, has rather burdened the schools.
Mr Connel said to facilitate the admission process, the GES and the CSSPS secretariat should request heads of schools to submit inputs and data pertaining to the number of first year vacancies for the ensuing academic year.
He said for some inexplicable reasons, the CSSPS secretariat did not adhere to the vacancies declared by heads of schools and rather placed very high numbers of students in the schools.
Mr Connel said students who would gain admission to the college in September/October this year would face serious accommodation difficulties as the classroom and dormitory blocks under construction would not have been completed.
He said whereas the construction of the classroom block was progressing steadily, the same could not be said of the dormitory block.
He, therefore, called on the government to endeavour to complete the two projects for the college to continue to deliver its quality education to the students and the nation.
Professor Joseph K. Adjaye, a lecturer in African Studies, History and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, USA, called for the institution of a National History Day at the basic and secondary levels to make students understand the nation’s history.
He called on the Ministry of Education to work with the GES to develop a realistic and long-range plan toward the attainment of universal secondary education for all.