MoE arrests 3 persons over bribery, manipulation of school placement system

According to the Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, over three individuals have been arrested by the joint security services for alleged bribery and manipulation of the school placement system.

Speaking at the 2025 ADEA Triennale conference, he said, “They are even more than three,” adding, “We have improved our cybersecurity systems, which allow us to monitor and police what is associated with the placement.

The Minister in Charge of Education added that “A few weeks back, we got National Security to arrest three individuals. We will allow the law to deal with anybody found culpable.”

He added that “For now, we have limited access to the portal as part of our management of it. Me sitting here — I don’t have access to the portal. My deputy does not have access either. That way, we can hold the individual with access fully accountable. That is the strategy we are using.”

Relatedly, the Deputy National Coordinator of the Free SHS Secretariat, Dr Belinda Glover, has disclosed that two parents have been arrested for attempting to offer a bribe for their wards’ school placement to be changed.

Speaking to journalists, she cautioned that any attempt to manipulate the school placement system would not be tolerated.

“Some of them come here with five or more placement sheets. Beyond 2, you are in for business because you can’t tell me you have five children all entering senior high school at the same time. Even with that, we followed up on some of these cases and found that they collect money from people and come here pretending to be parents. Once we detect that, we involve the police,” she said.

She cautioned the public against paying to alter placements, stressing that the system has strong monitoring measures in place to detect irregularities and fraud.

“Inasmuch as we are here to help the public, we must also be smart. Anyone caught attempting to tamper with the process will face the law,” the Deputy National Coordinator of the Free SHS Secretariat said.

This year, out of the 590,309 BECE students who qualified for second-cycle school placement, a total of 107,000 students were asked to do self-placement at https://www.cssps.gov.gh/hub/self-placement.

Of the 590,309 BECE candidates who qualified for second-cycle school (SHS/TVET) placement. A total of 483,800 were placed automatically, while 107,000 secured schools through self-placement.

According to the Ministry, 483,800 BECE graduates secured automatic second-cycle school placement. Of these, 234,783, representing 48.6%, were boys, and 248,038, representing 51.4%, were girls.