School Placement: Three Things That Will Make Several Students Miss Their 1st And 2nd Choices
The 2023 senior high school placement is yet to be released. Most BECE graduates wish to get their first choice on the school placement list. However, the Ghana Education Service does the school placement considering several factors.
Here are some three ways that may make several students miss their first and second choices.
1. Aggregate
This is the first thing being considered when the school placement is being done. Currently, aggregate 6 to aggregate 10 pupils are likely to get their first choice. Aggregate 11 to Aggregate 19 pupils are also likely to get their second choices. Any student whose aggregate falls below these two may miss their first and second choices.
2. Accommodation
During the school placement, this is what happens. After a student has made the needed raw score for a particular school and programme of choice, he or she will not be placed in the school until there is an available place for him or her based on the accommodation choice.
Most BECE graduates want to be in boarding school, hence nearly every one of them chooses Boarding for every school they want to attend. Let us assume that you want to Study General Science in Achimota. If you have the needed raw score for Achimota, but the school has already got the number of students it can take for boarding, even if the school has 100 slots for Day students, you will not be placed in Achimota simply because, your accommodation choice does not match what is on your School selection for Achimota.
What this simply means is that many students are also going to miss placement, all because they chose boarding school. This explains why sometimes, a student with a good grade who wants to gain admission into let’s say PRESEC Legon, will not be placed, but another student may choose the same school and opt for day and be placed.
3. Oversubscription of a given school
Finally, students will often miss their first and second school choices because these schools are very competitive and almost all students choose these schools. For instance, some category A and B schools can admit not more than 800 SHS1 students but the number of students that choose such schools is often more than 3000. What this means is that e 2200 out of the 3000 who chose the school to be considered for the 2023 School Placement will never get the chance to be placed in such a school because the school does not have the capacity to admit even half of those who chose the school.
The above are very clear and explain why many 2022 BECE graduates will miss 1st and 2nd Choice during the 2023 School Placement
When Will SHS 1 Students Resume
According to the new academic calendar from the Ghana Education Service, all 2022 BECE graduates who passed their BECE exams are expected to be in senior high school on 20th February, 2023.
According to the academic calendar for both single track and double track schools, academic work for SHS 1 students resume on 20th February, 2023 ends in April, 2023.
2023 School placement is yet to be released. However, it is important for 2022 BECE graduates to know the exact date in which admission process in various senior high schools will begin in order for them to begin their senior high school education.
The Exact Date 2022 BECE Graduates Will Go To SHS According To The Academic Calendar
According to the Ghana Education Service, the school placement list will be out to the public by the end of February. .
Will The 2023 School Placement Involve Double Track System
First-year Senior High School students for the 2023/2024 academic year will not go through the double-track system which was introduced in 2018 to accommodate the increase in enrolment of Junior High School students into Senior High Schools.
All SHS one students will be in school together. There will no division in them as experienced few years ago.
According to the Ministry of Education, adequate preparations have been put in place to ensure that schools are able to absorb the first year student