The Free Senior High School (SHS) Secretariat is cautioning parents and guardians to pay attention to the selection of schools for their wards.
Previous school selection exercises have been characterized by queues by parents at the offices of the placement secretariat with a wide range of complaints.
Some of the complaints have to do with no placement of school, change of school due to distance from home and other personal reasons.
Speaking to Citi News ahead of the 2019/2020 academic year selection, the Coordinator of the Secretariat, William Darkwah said paying attention to the process during the selection stage will avoid misunderstanding of the choice process.
“When it comes to the placement period, most of the challenges that we face are due to the choice process so we are encouraging parents to start paying attention.”
“Make sure you know exactly what [course] your children are choosing and which school they are choosing because the placement is done automatically. What you input is what they are going to find [for your ward].”
The Free SHS policy led to an increase in enrollment triggering concerns about the quality of education received.
It took only seven months for Free SHS education to begin, with the first years, numbering about 400,000 starting school in the 2017/18 academic year.
The policy saw the government absorb the full cost of public secondary education, with beneficiaries not having to pay admission fees, examination fees, and utility fees, among others.
The concerns were heightened when the government implemented the double track system to counter the infrastructure deficit within the various senior high schools.