Prior to the initiation of the Computerized School Selection and
Placement System (CSSPS), the selection and placement of students in second
cycle institutions was machine-driven and labour-intensive.
The manual system was laborious and time-consuming. It was also characterized by
several limitations and flaws such as misplacement of student registration
cards and forms, wrong shading of index and code numbers by students and
heads of Junior High Schools (JHSs), undue delay in admissions as well as
loss of admission letters.
Furthermore, the manual system was highly susceptible to human manipulation and machinations such as bribery and corruption. Rich and affluent parents used their monetary influence to secure placement for their wards in good and extremely endowed schools to the disadvantage of good students from poor homes.
Similarly, the influence and pressure from “old boys” and “old girls” associations, PTA officials, protocol admissions and insatiability by some heads of second cycle institutions
plagued the admission procedures of the manual system.
Additionally, before the introduction of the CSSPS innovation, heads
of very good and highly endowed schools indiscriminately and unilaterally set
high personal cut-off grade points and admission standards to attract only the
exceptionally good and gifted students to the detriment of the less brilliant and
rural setting students.
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Furthermore, in the era of the manual system, the period of the release of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) results was a terrible period for parents and students.
Nervous parents had to travel to the selected schools of their wards to ascertain the admission status of their wards and to pay the admission fee on time to secure the place else it will be given to another person.
Indisputably, these problems that lumbered the manual system made it
unbefitting as a selection and placement tool.
