All eligible JHS graduates are required to start monitoring their senior high school placement through the new Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) as soon as the BECE results are made public.
The placement process is based on the openings that various senior high schools have announced.
Students are automatically placed in one of the schools they selected during the exam registration procedure via the CSSPS’s automatic placement system, strictly determined by the candidates’ achievement on the final exam.
The CSSPS completes the placement by calculating the average of the grades of the BECE candidates, ranking them, and determining which of the chosen institutions they are eligible for.
Process Involved
The candidate’s overall performance in the four core disciplines (English, Mathematics, Integrated Science, and Social Studies) as well as the two top grades from his or her elective courses serve as the basis for the initial evaluation. The CSSPS automatically captures final grades of candidates and put each candidate into a befitting school.
Categories of School Placement
- Automatic Placement: The CSSPS uses this method to assign students to one of its predetermined schools in declining order of merit. There is no human input necessary as it runs automatically. The competitiveness of the school, overall grade, subject performance, and others are some elements that can affect placement in this group. The CSSPS then confirms the student’s selected residential status (Boarding or Day) for availability and puts him or her accordingly if the individual meets the requirements of the program of their first choice. The CSSPS transfers the person to the second choice if the first-choice residential status is already taken. Until the student is assigned a school, the procedure is repeated, thus if options one and two are both taken, the algorithm switches to option three and it continues.
- Self-Placement: Candidates can self-place through the CSSPS portal and choose from schools that have openings. The benefit of this is that students can switch schools as much as feasible based on space availability, however this option ends the moment a candidate enrolls in a school. The drawback is that the applicant may not particularly prefer any of the institutions with openings and would have limited selection options.
Procedure
- The candidate’s index number will be used to log into the system.
- The candidate is free to select whether they want a boarding school or a day school.
- There will be options accessible for the candidate, regardless of the residence option they select.
- Additionally, the candidate has the option to choose their desired program.
NB: When candidates choose a school from the list of options that matches their preferences, the system then places them in that school; they may then print the placement paperwork and visit the school to enroll. As a result, the candidate always has complete control over where he or she places themselves.
- Manual Placement: The process of choosing and assigning students to second cycle colleges was labor- and machine-intensive prior to the introduction of the CSSPS. It took a lot of time and effort to use the manual system. It was also distinguished by a variety of restrictions and shortcomings, including loss of student registration cards and forms, excessive delays in admissions, and loss of acceptance letters. The manual approach was also extremely vulnerable to human deception and trickery, including bribery and corruption. Also, anxious parents were required to make a trip to the schools they had chosen for their children in order to check on their admission status and to pay the admission fee on time in order to reserve their child’s spot before it was granted to another student. Clearly, the manual technique was unsuitable as a selection and placement mechanism due to the issues that plagued it.
Conclusion
This article has provided vital information about the senior high school placement for junior high school graduates. Now, you know the criteria involved in the school placement and why you do not always end up in your first choice of school.