Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, the Minister for Education, has charged the Police to arrest any education official who attempts to receive bribe to facilitate the placement of students in top tier Senior High Schools.

The issue of fraud in the Computer Selection Placement System (CSSPS) has become a matter of serious concern following an exposé by The Fourth Estate.

“When the Ministry of Education set up a resolution centre at the Bediako Conference Room of the GNAT Hall in Accra, it was meant to address anomalies and mistakes in the placement of students into Senior High Schools. Investigations by The Fourth Estate, however, revealed that the GNAT Hall had been turned into a market where placements into top Senior High Schools could be bought like commodities. Top officials linked to the placement executed their trade through a network of intermediaries, mostly security guards and cleaners at the GNAT Hall.

“It was easy to mistake them for scammers blowing hot air about their connections, but, as our investigation revealed, a cleaner who took your money at the GNAT Hall was capable of placing a student you presented in a school which only two top officials in Ghana’s educational system–the Minister of Education and the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES)–had the password to effect such placements,” a publication by The Fourth Estate said.

Reacting to the accusations during an interview on “Kokrokoo” show on Peace FM, the Minister stated emphatically that any person caught red-handed must be imprisoned.

According to him, he won’t tolerate any of his officials misconducting themselves.

“If any person pays money, report to the Police for the person to be arrested, and expose who he/she gave the money to,” he insisted.

He advised any official into the business of collecting money to place someone’s child in a specific school to desist from it stressing “you deserve to be in prison. I don’t care who you are”.

” . . Evil deeds . . . report to the police, let them investigate and arrest the person who did it, it is simple . . . “ he said in reference to the former Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, Prof Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa who told The Fourth Estate that the current Education Minister’s password was used to perpertrate the fraud.

The immediate past Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Prof Opoku-Amankwa, says he and the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, should take responsibility in the case of any fraud associated with protocol placement of students into senior high schools.

“If there is fraud in the matter, then I, as the Director-General, and the minister, should take responsibility. I fully accept and agree, but I knew that I was part of it and I wanted to actually make sure that there were no challenges with it,” he told The Fourth Estate in an interview.

The two are the only persons with the passwords to effect placement to category A schools. Although the minister of education said the GES Director-General’s office and the Ministry of Education were the two institutions which had access to Category A schools, our checks revealed that full access to such protocol placement and all category A schools were limited to only two individuals.

“In reality, we have two; the Director-General’s office and the Ministry of Education. Last year, those are the two people with access,” Dr Adutwum told The Fourth Estate in an interview.

“If only two people have access to category A schools, you are able to tell who did the placement for a certain student so if these allegations that a parent has paid money, and this student has found himself in this school, you go into the system and the IT people are able to tell which of the two people did the placement so it becomes much easier,” the minister said.

He added: “And you know this is the area [category A schools] where people are scamming parents because they are the most desirable schools.”

A memo that was circulated within the Ministry of Education on the 2022 placement shows that only the Director-General of the GES, Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, and the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, had full access to the category A schools.

Source:Peacefmonline.com/Ghana