Thousands of parents and students are still trooping to SHS placement resolution centres across the country to seek help with problems relating to the 2026 school placement exercise.
But what exactly is happening?
The resolution centres were opened to help address various grievances arising from the school placement exercise.
In Accra, the National Placement Resolution Centre at the GNAT Hall has recorded large crowds, with parents complaining about long queues and delays. The crush got so bad on Tuesday that a glass door at the entrance broke as anxious parents pushed to get in.
By Thursday, the resolution exercise had entered its fourth day at the venue, with some parents describing overnight stays as they waited to be attended to.
A similar situation has been reported in Kumasi, where more than 2,000 parents and students reportedly gathered at the Kumasi Technical Institute resolution centre.
Some had travelled from as far as Obuasi, with the reporting date for newly placed SHS students, September 18, adding to the pressure to get issues resolved quickly.
The complaints are not only about students who were not placed.
Some parents say their children were placed in schools different from the choices they made. Others are questioning why students who selected boarding were given day placements. There are also complaints about twins being separated, students being placed far from home, and changes in programmes or courses.
One case that has drawn particular attention involves some 14 female students from a school in the Ashanti Region who were reportedly recorded as male on their CSSPS records, an error that affected their placement into the girls-only schools they had chosen.
Much of this year’s strain has been linked to a policy change introduced in April, which allowed candidates to select their preferred schools only after receiving their BECE results, rather than before as in previous years.
According to the Ministry of Education, 313,283 candidates picked Category A schools as their first choice this year, against just 76,417 declared vacancies in that category, a gap officials say explains why so many candidates were not automatically placed.
Overall, 527,932 candidates, representing 87.3 per cent of those who qualified, secured placement.
Schools have reopened and are expecting first-year students to report, but crowds are still gathering at resolution centres in Accra and Kumasi days after results were released, and one question keeps coming up: who is to blame?
@adom_tv SHS placement dilemma: Who must we blame? #Adomnews ♬ original sound – AdomTV
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