After completing Junior high school, and writing your B.E.C.E., one of the most important choices you have to make is to select which senior high school you will attend. There are over 981 senior high schools in Ghana from which you must choose from. This can seem like a daunting task; however, this article will help you to make the right selection.

As a BECE candidate, you must select schools from Category A to D. Choosing the wrong schools in the wrong order or category can make it difficult for you to be placed in a school; in the worst-case scenario, you might not be placed in any school.

To avoid this mistake and ensure the smooth placement of qualified BECE candidates, the Ghana Education Service and Ghana TVET Service (GTVETS) have provided information to help candidates, parents or guardians, and the general public select the right schools.

BECE candidates are to select eleven (11) senior high schools in all, the initial 6 and the last 5. They must choose only 1 school from Category A and a maximum of 2 from the 260 Category B schools in Ghana. The 6^th choice must be a day school from Category D.

Here are the guidelines for BECE candidates to select schools in Ghana:

1. Students must select six (6) schools in total and rank them in order of preference with the first being the most preferred choice. This means that among all the schools you would like to attend, which of them would you like to attend the most? That school should be your first choice.
2. After selecting your six schools, you must now select programmes and residential status for each school of your choice. This also means that each time you select one school, you must indicate or select what course you want to study in that school and whether you want to be a boarder or a day student.
3. In selecting your 6^th choice, you must compulsorily select a day school. The day senior high school you choose as your 6^th choice must be within 16km of the JHS you attended or you can choose a boarding school from the list of schools in APPENDIX 3.

For example, if the JHS you attended is around Accra Mall then the SHS you choose as your sixth choice should be between Accra Mall and the University of Professional Studies, meaning it must be close. Another example is, if the JHS you attended is around Kumasi Sports Stadium then your sixth choice of SHS should be between the stadium and Kumasi Technical University.

There are 928 Category D schools in Ghana from which you must select a day school.

• After you choose your first six (6) schools which are the schools you want to attend most of all, you now select five (5) schools. The first school should be from a Category A school, two schools should be from Category B, and at least 2 from Category C. All these schools are found in APPENDIX “4”.  These schools serve as a consideration for second placement if you miss out on all your initial six (6) choices.

BECE CANDIDATES SHOULD NOT DO THESE THINGS WHEN SELECTING SHS

1. Don’t choose more than one school from Category A
2. Don’t select more than two schools from Category B
3. You CAN select five schools from Category C and One school from Category D (should be a day school) or from Appendix 3 (special boarding schools).

• Candidates who want to offer purely TVET Programmes must select all six TVET Institutes from Category A, B, and C as Day or Boarding. There are 34 TVET schools under Category B schools and 154 TVET schools under Category C in Ghana. You can only choose a maximum of five (5) TVET schools under Category C
• Lastly, candidates who wish to offer programme choice in relation to future job prospects such as Engineers, Physicians, Astronauts, etc. must select STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) / Science in all their choices from Categories A, B and C as Day or Boarding. There are 92 STEM senior high schools in Ghana, 34 of them are TVET and the rest are senior high and technical schools.