The newly adopted multiple choices for selecting Senior Secondary School Level One (SSS1), School choices for Basic Examination Certificate Examination (BECE) pupils with results, has had a negative impact for such pupils and their parents and guardians as hundreds of pupils who sat to the latest BECE are yet to be enrolled into a Senior Secondary School (SSS).

Top Grade A schools rarely admit BECE pupils who select such schools as their second or third choices even in cases in which pupils score way above the aggregate requirements of such schools.

Some parents and guardians of some pupils who are rejected from being enrolled in some schools because of not making such schools their first choices opt for private schools. Ideally, pupils with aggregate 18 or below should not be rejected by any Grade A school regardless of such schools being second or third choices; but the reality is that the authorities in these top schools reject pupils who don’t choose their schools as first choices.

Almost all schools have completed their enrolment for this year’s SS1 admission, but some pupils who performed extremely well in the last Basic Examination Certificate Examination (BECE) are yet to be enrolled in SSS1.

Some parents and guardians are of the view that the single choice was less problematic because they opted for schools, they thought their children or wards would pass for. And even those pupils that performed poorly had the opportunity to be enrolled in other schools.

As it is, it is frustrating for pupils who are not still enrolled in SSS1 because of not making some schools their first choices, not for want of the required aggregates (grades) of schools.

The Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary School has to come to the aid of rejected pupils who passed BECE regarding enrolment.