Education-News Consult

• Common Mistakes to Avoid During BECE School Selection.
• Essential Tips for Parents, Teachers, and Students.
• School Selection and Placement Challenges and Ideas.

During school selection by BECE candidates with the help of their schools, teachers, and parents, many mistakes are made, leading to several avoidable challenges before and after the release of the school placement by GES and the Free SHS secretariat.

As you read this post, keep in mind that students who achieve grade 9 in either mathematics or English language are never assigned to the school of their choice when school placements are released.

Common Mistakes To Avoid During 2024 BECE School Selection: Essential Tips You Need

Do you know all about the 2024 BECE school selection and the common mistakes to avoid?

While we all wait for the Ghana Education Service (GES) to release the school selection date, procedures, and timelines, the Education-News Consult will provide useful updates in this post and cover the following:.

1. Likely changes to the school selection process.
2. Factors to consider when selecting schools
3. Mistakes to avoid during school selection
4. Learn how to prevent self-placement and the stress it causes.
5. What parents and students should know and what to do while they wait for the BECE result and school placement.

The school selection process is likely to undergo changes.

1. In 2023, the number of schools chosen may revert to six from the eleven chosen by BECE candidates. This is because, even though students chose 5 more schools than their previous colleagues, that did not significantly reduce the number of learners who missed all schools chosen, leading to the need for them to use the self-placement mode.
2. We also anticipate alterations to the school selection procedure itself. We anticipate alterations to sections such as programme selection. Based on the likelihood that learners won’t study elective programs in year one, the school may require them to select up to three programs.

The change in the curriculum and the fact that students won’t begin studying program-specific subjects until year two inform the aforementioned projections by Education-News Consult.

Factors to consider when selecting schools

Choosing a school and a program for a candidate is a technical process that requires a lot of consideration.

Programme and future career ambitions

When making school choices for SHS1 students, their program and future career aspirations must match. Often, students enter senior high school and even graduate without knowing exactly which profession or career path they want to take. This is largely due to parents’ lack of planning and consideration during the school selection process.

All parents and guardians must ensure that the career ambitions or professions the BECE graduate wants to enter inform the choice of schools and programs.

A student’s talent and academic strength

Schools often fall into three categories: A, B, and C, with Category A schools experiencing oversubscription. Parents and students must know that “A” schools are very competitive, and anyone who makes one of these schools an option 1 must make very competitive grades to stand a chance of gaining admission into the school. It is also never mandatory to make your first choice from such schools. A school in Category A may have the capacity to admit 2000 SHS1 students, but will often have over 30,000 students choosing it. The question is, with the grades you’ve been making in your mocks before the BECE, can those grades help you gain admission to the Category A school you’ve chosen? If the answer is no, reconsider.

When selecting schools, always choose based on the strength of the candidate’s academic records, not taste or preferences.

Accommodation type chosen

Nearly every BECE graduate and parent wants his or her child to enrol in a school as a boarding student. Many BECE graduates, despite their excellent grades, opt for boarding as their preferred accommodation. In many instances, a student may be in, let’s say, grade 1 and want to read Business in Presec Legon or Aburi Girls. If a student meets the placement requirements and prefers boarding, the schools might have already filled all the boarding spots for SHS1 students before they reach his or her turn. Therefore, they might have to shift the student to the second choice option and consider boarding there. Simply put, schools tend to place students with good grades more easily than those with boarding alternatives.

Raw scores and the related competition.

If we award grade 1 to all students who achieve grades between 85 and 100 for each subject, a student with one grade could have obtained 86, while another could have obtained 90 for the same subject. However, if we sum up all the raw scores from the four core subjects and the two best subjects from other subjects, the students achieving grade 1 will have different total raw scores. Now, students who choose a specific school and program and exceed the available space can be arranged from the highest grade earned to the lowest. Candidates can then use this to secure spots in their chosen schools.

This implies that, despite receiving good grades, your ward might not secure a preferred secondary school due to competition from students who achieved the same grade or aggregate but with superior raw scores.

The above factors greatly influence school placement; hence, parents and candidates must be careful when making choices.

Mistakes to avoid during school selection

We are humans, and we can make mistakes, but we can make better choices by being attentive to the options available and considering the factors above.

1. Do not assume that your ward will be placed in options 1 or 2 and not in options 3, 4, or 5. Your ward has the freedom to select any school of their choice. Therefore, be extra careful with all the choices you make.
2. As a parent, do not leave the school selection in the hands of the student and teacher. You will have yourself to blame if something goes wrong.
3. Never choose a school based on your taste or preference; you will regret it.
4. Do not choose day schools in another region for your ward unless you have a family member so close to the school.
5. Avoid considering schools that offer hostels, as your ward may become unruly without the supervision of teachers. Boarding schools have their challenges but are far better regulated by housemasters and mistresses.

READ: When is school selection for 2024 BECE graduates starting?

Learn how to prevent self-placement and the stress it causes.

Self-placement serves as the final opportunity for BECE graduates who, despite their passing grades, were unable to secure placement at their chosen schools due to a lack of vacancies, competition, accommodation type, or other factors. In such a situation, students will have to select new schools from the available options. Choosing new schools can be a stressful situation; therefore, to prevent it, focus on the explanations provided in this post so far.

What should parents do while waiting for the BECE result and school placement?

We encourage parents to wait for the school selection, results, and school placement.

Continue to save for their wards’ secondary education, as free SHS is indeed costly. You will have to enrol your ward in a private school for up to 3 months each term they vacate.

Again, you will need money to get them ready for term 1, whether they are going to boarding school or not. Do well to save for it.

Parents must also save and invest in pre-high school education. Remedial schools provide this service. Remedial Schools provide an opportunity for students to acquire and familiarize themselves with core subjects at the SHS prior to the announcement of school placements. This will help the learner work on the foundation of their core subjects before they start secondary school properly.

What should students do while waiting for their BECE results and school placement?

Students must be revising their core subjects (English Language, Mathematics, Social Studies, and Integrated Science).

READ: 2024 BECE Marking Date and Grading System Out

As a student, you will do yourself a lot of good by reading books (storybooks and non-fiction, among others).

We are excited that we have shared this post “2024 BECE School Selection And Common Mistakes To Avoid,” written based on our research and experiences on this important issue. If you have any questions we did not touch on, let us know in the comment session.