A former Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Charles Aheto-Tsegah, has said the recurring confusion over the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) can only be resolved if the long-standing issue of protocol is decisively addressed.
Speaking on The Big Issue on Channel One TV on Saturday, September 27, 2025, Mr. Aheto-Tsegah argued that protocol — which he described as pressure on headmasters from parents to admit students outside the system — remains the “small elephant in the room” that continues to undermine the placement process.
“The protocol has actually been expanding, and that is what we have to deal with. If we want to be very fair and equitable, we need to kill that small elephant in the room called protocol,” he said.
He further described the CSSPS as “dead on arrival,” insisting that the placement mechanism was flawed from the very beginning.
“We didn’t even know how to manage protocol in the system, even though we knew that it was an ever-present issue in that process, so we could manage it and we have lived with that system right from the beginning,” he stated.