Dr. Yaw Adutwum urges redesign of CSSPS so 55,000 unplaced BECE candidates can access SHS vacancies
Former Education Minister Dr. Yaw Adutwum has urged that the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) be reworked to enable unplaced Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates to take up available Senior High School places through self-placement.
Appearing on Eyewitness News on Tuesday, September 9, he warned that the present arrangement risks continuing to shut out candidates whose names have not been listed as eligible for self-placement.
He expressed concern over the high number of students left without placement in the initial 2026 exercise, suggesting this may point to flaws in the system itself.
Dr. Adutwum recalled that the Free Senior High School policy was intentionally structured to scrap the old cutoff mechanism, which previously barred roughly 100,000 candidates from secondary education each year.
He maintained that rigid cutoffs hit students from rural and disadvantaged backgrounds hardest, as they often lack the same preparatory advantages as those in urban centres.
Simply telling unplaced candidates to use self-placement will not fix the issue, he cautioned, if the CSSPS has already removed them from the pool of students allowed to choose schools.
“If this is the case, then the software developers have to go and redesign the system. Otherwise, when they go and they want to find a school, their name will not be on the system for them to find the school because the system will have excluded them,” he stated.
His remarks come after the Ministry of Education announced that 54,985 BECE candidates who missed out on the first placement round may now select schools that still have vacancies via the self-placement process.
