School selection tips towards stress free school placement for parents and BECE candidates

Ghana Education News: School selection tips towards stress free school placement for parents and BECE candidates

This post “A guide to choosing Free SHS for parents and BECE candidates” will help parents and students appreciate the factors that determine placement and use them to make choices. Each year, parents, schools, teachers, and students who fail to choose schools the right way end up facing difficulties such as students passing the BECE but not being placed in all, students passing with good grades but being compelled to use the self-placement module, or the candidate passes the examination but is placed in a school lower than their expectations.

Before we start note the following

1. Every school you choose can be given to you so so not just select a school becuase, you feel you will be placed in on of the earlier choices.
2. Do not chose schools based on taste and preferences.
3. Schools are put in the various categories becuase of the facilities they have and not their performance in the WASCE.
4. There are better schools in category B that perform well in the WASCE each year than schools in category A.
5. Do not choose a school becuase others are choosing it or becuase others attended that school. Your grade and raw scores will determined where you are placed.
6. Choose schools and be careful the way you arrange them.
7. It is not compulsory to choose your first school from Category A.

School selection tips towards stress free school placement for parents and BECE candidates

This is a guide to choosing Free SHS for parents and BECE candidates.

If parents take into account the guide to choosing Free SHS for parents and BECE candidates shared here, they can deal with or minimize the above problems.

In this post, we shall provide answers to the following questions and more:.

1. What factors determine a candidate’s placement after the BECE?
2. Why do some brilliant students with good grades never get placed in schools they would have preferred?
3. Why do students obtain the same grade as others but not get placed in the same schools they chose?
4. Can parents who make informed choices during the school selection phase easily place their students?

School selection tips towards stress free school placement for parents and BECE candidates and the factors that determine a candidate’s placement after the BECE

The raw score

The raw score of the candidate is one of the key factors that determine whether he or she will be placed in school. The raw score is all the actual marks obtained by the candidate in the following subjects: The 4 core subjects plus the raw scores from 2 of the best subjects picked (French, Computing, Career Technology, Ghanaian Language, and Creative Arts and Design)

Students with very high raw scores in core subjects, for instance, have a high chance of being placed, but their chances become even higher if they make very good grades in any two of the subjects: French, computing, career technology, Ghanaian language, and creative arts and design.

Schools chosen

The schools chosen can help a student gain admission or not at all because all the schools are often classified under one of three categories known as Category A, Category B, and Category C.

If a student is not scoring, say, 400+/600 in his or her preparatory mocks for the BECE, chances are that he or she may not make such a raw score to increase the chances of being placed in Category A schools. Parents must constantly track their BECE candidates’ performance trends to help them make informed decisions.

Often, parents are quick to choose Category A schools for their wards when they know very well that their wards are not academically strong enough to make a 400+/600 raw score.

Such candidates frequently don’t get into their first-choice Category B schools or may wind up in their third choice.

In some instances, the arrangement of the school choices can negatively affect the chances of being placed.

In other instances, the programme chosen by the student can serve as a weakness for the candidate, leading to him or her not being placed in any of his or her choices at all.

For instance, if a student by the name Ama Ghana wants to read or study general science and chooses to study science in all his or her schools, but she obtains an aggregate score of 15 with a raw score of say 320, The chances of her not being placed in any of the first three schools are high because other students seeking to study science in the same school may have obtained single-digit aggregates or better raw scores than her; hence, their raw scores will knock on Ama Ghana each time she is moved into a new school choice for the purposes of placement.

Accommodation option: boarding is more competitive that day.

Sometimes, the choice of accommodation results in the non-placement of students. The reality when it comes to school placement is that nearly all candidates want to be in boarding school.

Hence, it is possible for a candidate to obtain a very good grade, like Ama Ghana, who wants to study general science and chose boarding accommodation. Even if there are five available slots for students with scores ranging from 300 to 320, Ama Ghana won’t secure a spot in these schools if the school only offers day accommodations.

In such an instance, a student seeking to study general science in the same school as a day student with a raw score of 295 will gain admission regardless of the choice of accommodation.  This explains why some brilliant students with good grades never secure placement in their preferred schools.

Again, two students may choose the same school and obtain the same grade, yet one gets placed and the other does not. This is often possible, either due to the accommodation type chosen as explained above or as a result of the programme chosen.

So a student with an aggregate 15 who chose general art may not get placed in a school, yet another who opted for, say, home economics and had an aggregate 15 will be placed in that same school.

From this, it is clear that there are school-level and programme-level competitions that all BECE candidates must fight with their raw scores, aggregates, and the type of accommodation they choose. This is why some students obtain the same grade as others, but they do not get placed in the same schools they chose.

Can parents who make informed choices during the school selection phase easily place their students?

Yes, and it starts with the above explanations.

Parents must also be willing to receive input from the schools and teachers.

Parents must know the academic capabilities of their children right from the mocks written.

Parents should keep a record of the raw scores of their wards from the mocks.

Consider the following:

400+ raw score is excellent for a Category A school as a first choice school.

350–400 raw score is excellent for a Category B school as a first and second choice school.

300–350 raw score is excellent for Category B school as a first-choice school, followed by the second-choice set from Category C.

In between the above ranges, there are several permutations depending on the programme the candidate is choosing and the accommodation.

With the guide to choosing Free SHS for parents and BECE candidates shared here at your finger tips, ensure as a parent that you choose schools not based on your taste and preference or with the hope that the student will perform a magic far better and more exciting than he or she is doing in the mock examinations.

READ: Latest BECE Examiner’s report on English Language for 2024 BECE candidates

We hope this school selection tips towards stress free school placement will help you make good and informed choices towards school placement.