It is the wish of every government duly elected by the citizenry to dispense its duties and responsibilities without discriminating against others in any form, in this case based on a business orientation.
Except that, that business in question is illegal according to the laws of the country.
Ghana, including other west African countries such as Sierra Leone, Liberia, Gambia, etc in 1952 signed an agreement to have the West African Examination Council, WAEC, headquartered here, in Accra, so that WAEC can assess and award the students who are transiting from the Basic to the secondary level and to the university as well.
WAEC, a limited by guarantee organization is funded by Ministry of Education with the tax payers’ money to assess every Ghanaian child and award them certificates accordingly. On the contrary, children in private schools pay for the same examination every year and this has been the norm since WAEC started its operations in the country.
EDUCATIONAL ACT, 778,2008.
According to, Section 27 under this act, which states that,’the Ministry of education shall improve and strengthen its relationship with private education institutions by involving them in free and open participation in education programmes’
The above section of the Act, derived from the 1992 constitution, has been breached by the MoE such that, the Ministry with its agency, GES, has allocated 30% placement in the SHS in category “A” schools to the students in public schools only. This 30% is quoted in the hand book called Computerized School Placement System (CSPS).
The Private schools Council has realized that it is a deliberate attempt on the part of the Ministry to deprive the private school children from competing with the public schools in admission processes into these category “A” SHS.
This is because comparatively, students from private schools perform better than students from public schools and they therefore get admission into these category A schools every year more than those children in public schools.
GNACOPS, seeks explanation from the MoE, why this discrimination?
If truly the Ministry, for that matter the government acknowledges the facts that the children in private schools are all Ghanaian, then there should be no discriminating when it comes to selection and placement to the Senior High Schools.
Why are they not given a fair share also?
The private school council is even against the monopoly of WAEC assessment in the country because parents are tired of the frustrations their children go through every year, after writing the exams, there is always an issue of leaked examination questions which leads to the particular subject paper being cancelled.
This is hard to believe and needs to be looked into!!!
There is always an increment in these examination fees every year and students from private schools are expected to pay these monies.
Surprisingly after paying and writing the same examination with their counterparts in public, the GES with their unpopular decision of reserving 30% of placement into category “A” schools deny these innocent brilliant school students the legitimate chance to be placed in a school they toiled for.
Can the Sector Ministry be bold enough to explain to all Ghanaian why they should treat these innocent brilliant private school students in such an unpatriotic manner?
Parents of such students would not forgive the Sector Ministry for that matter the government, if they get to know that their children were not placed in schools they qualified for because of an unkempt decision by GES.
The Ghana National Council of Private schools, GNACOPS, is asking the ministry to immediately Withdraw of this unpatriotic internal policy of reserving 30% placement allocation of category “A” schools to public school students.
This, defeat the spirit and letter of the constitution and all educational policies which promote and ensure equal access to quality education for all Ghanaian children.
ENOCH KWASI GYETUAH