Free SHS School Placement System: All you need to know

Do you know much about the Free SHS School Placement System? All BECE candidates, parents and schools waiting for the start of the school selection process are encouraged to read this.

All the detailes you need as of 2023 have been captured in this post for you.

Free SHS School Placement System: All you need to know
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL/TECHNICAL AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING PLACEMENT

Students who complete the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) at the Junior High School level and meet the relevant requirements are able to enter public Senior High Schools or Technical and Vocational and Training Schools under the Ghana Education Service and Technical/Vocational and Training Service GES/TVET
respectively. This is done through a school placement system called the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS), administered by the GES.

Steps Leading to Placement

2.1. Selection of School by Candidates

BECE candidates choose their preferred schools in consultation with their parents/guardians and their school authorities, using the school register provided for that year by GES.

Each student is required to make five (5) choices. Students must indicate their preferred schools in descending order (i.e. from the most preferred to the least preferred); their preferred programme of study (General Science, General Arts, Business, etc) and their preferred residential status (Day or Boarding), for each of
their first five choices (choice 1 to 5).

Additionally, candidates are to select school with compulsory Day Status and it must be a school from category D. The school chosen must also be within the candidate’s catchment area, so that the student can conveniently commute to the School as DAY  STUDENT.

The 6th choice school may also be the same as any of the candidate’s first five schools chosen. For instance, a candidate is allowed to choose School A as their first choice with a boarding status, and then choose the same school as their 6th compulsory DAY OPTION. OR Candidates May choose BOARDING from 120 community based boarding schools in their 6th choice.

The school selection form must be signed off by a parent/guardian and submitted to the candidate JHS head. Parent/Guardian must keep a copy.

After the selection is done, the District Exam Officers upload the data unto the database of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) platform.

School Choice Verification

Subsequently, GES will release a telephone short code (SMS) that can be dialed to obtain the list of schools, programmes of study and residential status the candidate has chosen, per the official records. This verification process is to enable any incorrect inputs that may have been forwarded to WAEC to be remedied with the correct
information.

Free SHS School Placement System: THE PLACEMENT TYPES

Following release of the BECE results by WAEC, the placement process begins. Using the candidate’s aggregate from their four core subjects (English, Mathematics, Integrated Science and Social Studies), and two of their best grades from their elective subjects.

The vacancies declared earlier by each school are then fed into the CSSPS. There are
three modes by which placement is done under the CSSPS:
A. Automatic Placement
B. Self-Placement
C. Manual Placement

Automatic School Placement

i. This is the process by which the CSSPS places the students, by merit, into one of their chosen schools in a descending order. This is done automatically without any manual intervention.

ii. If the candidate’s aggregate falls within the merit of the programme chosen for their first choice, the CSSPS then checks the student’s preferred residential status, and then places them accordingly based on the available ‘space’ If the desired residential status is full, the CSSPS moves the candidate to their second choice, and then repeats the process until placement is done.

iii. For instance, if a student with aggregate 8 would otherwise get placement in school A, but had chosen a Boarding option (which tends to be morecompetitive), and there happens to be no available space because other candidates with better aggregates have secured placement into the boarding house, the system will NOT place that student on Day Status in that school because the Day Option was not the candidate’s residential choice for that
school.

The system will rather move them to their Second Choice School to attempt to get both their preferred programme as well as their choice of residential status. If unsuccessful, the system will proceed to their third choice,
and the process is repeated until the student is placed.

Where a school is oversubscribed for a particular programme by students with similar aggregates, a Tie-Breaking System is employed to determine the placement, using the following parameters:

a. The number of Grade Ones

For example, if 400 students with Aggregate 6 are competing for Science in School A and there are only 180 available slots for Science, the ranking will be done such that those with Nine Ones, will gain admission, followed by those
with Eight Ones, and so on.

b. Raw Score

If there is a further need to break a tie, this will be done in descending order with respect to the raw scores obtained in the best six subject.

c. Subject performance
A further tie-breaking, where necessary, will then follow taking into consideration the best grades obtained in the Core Subjects, in a manner as follows:
 English, then
 Mathematics, then
 Integrated Science, then
 Social Studies.

The Placement results are then released by GES in an announcement via a Press
Communication. After the official release, candidates can check their school placement
via:
 Text message to check their placement information, or
 An Online portal i.e. http://www.cssps.gov.gh

In checking their placements, candidates will be able to access the following information:

i. Placed school (name and location).
ii. Residential status (whether Day or Boarding)
iii. Programme of study
iv. School calendar start date.
The placement results should then be printed out with other relevant documents and taken to the school in which the candidate has been placed, in order to enrol, obtain a school prospectus and prepare for school.

SELF-PLACEMENT
In some instances, a student may not be successful in securing placement in any of their choices. Self-placement is a process that gives such candidates an opportunity to go into the CSSPS portal and select from schools with available vacancies.

Features of Self-Placement

i. Only Schools with available vacancies will be displayed on the portal.
ii. Schools with vacancies will be displayed for candidates to choose based on their aggregate.
iii. Schools shown will have their location and residential options available.
iv. A candidate can change schools as many times as possible depending onavailable spaces. The changes CEASE immediately a candidate enrols in a school.

The Self-Placement Process

A candidate will log into the system using their index number.
The candidate will choose their residential preference i.e Day or Boarding.
a. If a candidate selects Boarding, all schools with boarding vacancies will be displayed.

b. If a candidate selects Day, then there will be a drop down menu for the candidate to select:
i. Day within catchment area; OR
ii. Day outside catchment area

c. The ‘Day within catchment area’ option displays only schools with Day vacancies within 16km of the JHS the candidate attended.

d. Day outside catchment area displays all schools with day vacancies.
Before the ‘Day outside catchment area’ option is effected, the candidate must confirm again if candidate intend to attend school outside their catchment area as a Day Student.

Manual Placement

The Manual/Special Placement is a means by which certain categories of candidates are placed due to their peculiar situations. The following categories of candidates are placed manually:

i. Special Needs and Gifted candidates (visually/hearing impaired, etc.)
ii. Seminarians
iii. Protocol Allocation

READ: When will 2024 BECE results be released by WAEC?

Manual Placement – Special and Gifted Students

There are specific schools which accept special and gifted candidates.
The manual placement system provides the following capabilities for such candidates:
i. Allows re-entry for special students only
ii. There is a separate interface for manual processing for special students.
iii. Provides separate allocation of vacancies for special students in selected schools.

Manual Placement – Seminarians

Seminary schools are establishments that train a section of their students for future Priesthood.
These institutions conduct their own interviews and examination exercises to select specific candidates who are best suited for the purposes of the Seminary.

A list of candidates from each Seminary Institution is submitted to GES headquarters for processing.

Protocol Allocation

A fraction of the declared vacancies is reserved for protocol allocation for schools. This allocation is mainly used to serve stakeholders of the schools.

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