AYV News, August 17, 2023
The Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Education (MBSSE) in collaboration with Junior Secondary Schools (JSS) nationwide has completed the placement exercise for the National Primary School Certificate Examination (NPSE). Schools have drawn their cut off marks and interviews for pupils to enroll into JSS 1 have already commenced in many schools in the country. The Placement Exercise is an instrument used as an intermediary between the Ministry and the Principals of JSS1 and SSS1 to help place pupils that have sat the transition Examinations (NPSE or BECE) and passed to have fair access to their schools of choice as the academic year unfolds. “The placement exercise enhances the Radical Inclusion policy. The Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary Schools ensures that all candidates that successfully passed the NPSE examination starting from 230 upward have a place in the JSS1 regardless of their circumstances: poor, pregnant, disabled, or far-reach areas have access or equal right to education,” according to the Executive Secretary National Commission for Basic Education Dr. Josephine Ladipo. She said the exercise is important because no child is left behind because of their background or condition, neither parent pays for a pupil to enroll in government or government-assisted secondary schools. She said for more inclusiveness, the Ministry has increased choices to three to accommodate more candidates. Instead of one option, adding that there are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices respectively. “The exercise this year lime every other year takes intense collaboration and negotiation between the principals and the ministry. The principals are engaged throughout the process. The ministry prepared a spreadsheet with items like the number of students who sat and passed, the number of streams the school has, considering repeaters, furniture, the size of the classroom, and how many students they plan to accept for JSS1 or SSS1. This exercise is repeated for all over-subscribed, subscribed, and Under-subscribed Schools, accordingly,” she said. She said these students have three choices for the placement process, noting that if not placed in the first choice, they will have the opportunity to attend the second choice or third. She said the intake information will determine the actual official cut-off for each school. “We have developed an Algorithm, a tool that speeds up the placement exercise mostly for 2nd, 3rd, and zonal placements. It is faster and reduces human error. This tool speedily prepared the complete analysis of results, including NPSE, BECE, or WASSCE. It is with high accuracy in the zonal placement,” she said. Dr. Ladipo stated that the Algorithm does zonal placement for pupils who do not make it to their three choices, adding that the system will then place pupils in schools in their community or closer to the school of entry. “One of the advantages of this is that it is objective rather than subjective. Meaning the tool doesn’t tell the name or status of the student or parent’s background. It considers the school ID numbers to do the placement,’ she concluded. The MBSSE also developed an app that will enable students to know which school they are placed in. Parents, guardians or even students can text Placement to 468 to get their NPSE placement.
