The Ministry of Education and Sports is yet to address the irregularities and loopholes in the national selection and placement process.
In the past, parents and students used to have high expectations for the selection process, hoping to be admitted to secondary schools based on their performance and choices made on form X before the examination.
However, over time, many public secondary schools have started using underhand methods and putting artificial barriers in place, hindering admission based on merit. As a result, it appears that many parents are now securing admissions for their children to schools before the national selection process even starts.
The problem has featured at the ongoing national selection exercise for 2023 senior one students with Ministry of Education officials, who are constantly receiving calls from parents about the issue raising it to headteachers. However, as in previous years, the officials have offered no solution beyond pleading with the schools to stop the irregularities.
"The situation is deteriorating, as parents are losing faith in the selection process. Although guidelines for placement exist, the enforcement is unclear," a member of the national selection committee who never wanted to be named told our reporter.
Dr. Jane Egau, the new chairperson of the national selection and placement committee, also acknowledged the existence of irregularities in the now-discredited process but did not provide a direct solution to address the issue. "We all know what is happening. It’s a public secrete that this is happening. We need to find a solution and we will come up with one this time. This cannot continue," said Dr. Egau.
Before the side interview, Dr. Egau, who is also the Director for Higher Technical Vocational and Educational Training at the Ministry, revealed the loopholes in the selection process created by schools.
First, she pointed out that some schools are under declaring the available slots in their schools to the committee. For instance, as Dr. Egau noted, a school may state that their senior one capacity is 200 students, but when classes start, they have 600 or more students, indicating that over 400 slots were kept hidden and used to admit students outside of the official selection process, thereby denying opportunities to deserving students who end up on the selling list.
She adds that other schools also resort to overcrowd classrooms as the increase on the number of learners processed through school based admission.
