Some first year students and their parents who turned up at the Mfantsipim School in the Central Region with their trunks and chop boxes on Sunday were left stranded after they were turned away by authorities of the school because they had been wrongly placed.

The school’s authorities claim the students, numbering more than 50, were wrongly placed under the self-placement module of the Computerised School Selection Placement System (CSSPS) and that they could not get space in the school.

The situation is creating panic as parents who travelled from near and far were in a fix about what to do.

A disillusioned parent who spoke to the Daily Graphic said upon arrival at the school, a notice on the bulletin board informed them that the school was not admitting the first year students who did self-placement because they had been wrongly placed.

She said however, that students who were automatically placed by the CSSPS had been admitted in the school.

The notice which was sighted by the Daily Graphic had been signed by the Headmaster of the school and read, “Please all students who did self-placement from 9th to 11th September 2019 should kindly go to the placement portal to reapply. There was a technical hitch but has been rectified.

“This is a directive to the general public, parents and students by GES. The names of the affected students are not part of the list posted on the board. Sorry for any inconvenience,” it read.

The parent told the Daily Graphic that her ward was given Visual Arts under the self-placement module and that most of the affected students were Visual Arts students.

She said following her son’s placement, she picked up the prospectus last Wednesday and was asked to report to the school on Sunday.

“My ward was given Visual Arts. We came here on Wednesday after my ward was placed at Mfantsipim and they gave us a prospectus. We’ve sewn uniforms, bought all the items and now they are asking us to go back home. We won’t go,” she said.

“When we came on Wednesday, they took our phone numbers and so if anything at all, they should have called us or sent us messages to that effect. The number of students doing visual arts on the notice board is just 22 so parents suspect there is more to it than meets the eye. They say they are not admitting but we have been given prospectus since last week to report today only to be given this news,” she added.

Self-placement module

The Ghana Education Service (GES) last Tuesday announced that candidates who qualified to enter the senior high schools, technical and vocational institutions but have not been placed, have the chance to do self-placement.

According to the Head of Public Relations at the GES, Ms Cassandra Twum Ampofo, a total of 122,706 candidates out of the 473,728 candidates who qualified to be placed are expected to do self-placement.

She explained that by this system, a candidate who misses out on the placement under the Computerised School Selections Placement System (CSSPS) is required to go to the self-placement platform on the cssps.gov.gh or cssps.org to select his or her preferred school from a list of schools provided.

The self-placement module was however, temporarily closed down last Wednesday to enable the GES update the list of schools and programmes available on the module.

The GES further directed parents and their wards who did self-placement between September 9 and 11 to reapply.

The module was reopened on Thursday, September 12, 2019.

No student wrongly placed
Meanwhile, the Deputy Director in charge of Quality and Access, Mr Kwabena Tandoh in an interview last Friday dismissed reports that some students had wrongly been placed by the CSSPS.

According to him, students were placed on merit and in accordance with their choice of schools.