No Free SHS For These 2024 BECE Graduates
While all 2024 BECE graduates wait patiently for the end of marking, release of results, and placements, candidates need to be told the truth that not all who sat for the BECE will make it to Free SHS.
Free SHS is a policy introduced by the government that ensures that as many learners get placed into schools and that parents do not pay fees. While this has increased enrolment, the quality of the graduates it produces has remained a hotly debated issue among academicians, politicians, and the general public.
For BECE graduates waiting to be placed in SHS, several factors will contribute to their failure to start secondary education in November 2024. While it may sound sad, it is the reality.
What Categories of 2024 BECE graduates who will not make it to Free SHS
Let us take a look at the factors that will contribute to this sad reality. Take note that there will be no free SHS for these 2024 BECE graduates.
If a student’s result for the BECE is cancelled or withheld results
The cancellation of the results of a candidate can create serious problems for the candidate. When the results of a subject or all the subjects are cancelled or withheld by WAEC, the affected candidate will have an incomplete academic record. This will mean the Free SHS secretariat will not place such a student in any of the schools chosen. Such a student will have to wait for the withheld results to be released or write the BECE again as a private candidate to score genuine grades. Such a student will spend at least one more year at home and only start SHS when his or her original colleagues are in SHS2.
Students who failed in mathematics or English language
While the BECE has no cut-off point grades, it has cut-off points for subjects such as English Language and Mathematics. Per the new system, all candidates stand the chance of being placed but must obtain at worst grade 8 in English Language and Mathematics. Any student who scores grade 9 in any of these two subjects will not be placed in any SHS even if they obtain grade 1 in all other subjects. The best option such learners have will be to re-sit the BECE in a year, pass, and then get placed.
When such students check their school placement, they will not be placed at all.
READ: 2024 BECE results release date revealed
Those who were not automatically placed and did not use their self-placement opportunity
Each year, several students running to one hundred thousand and more do not get placed in any of their school choices automatically. Such students must use the self-placement module to manually choose schools and get placed. Where a student has this option but fails to use it, he or she will not be placed in any public senior high school.
In recent times, several parents enrol their wards in private SHS if the public SHS their wards are placed in is not to their satisfaction.
2024 BECE graduates who are waiting for their results are to take note of the above possible reasons why they may not enjoy the Free SHS when placement is released. Poor grades at the BECE, especially in core subjects, can negatively impact these candidates and their chances of being placed in their preferred school choices.