The Ghana Education Service (GES) has appealed to parents, guardians and the 2011 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates waiting to enter senior high schools and technical institutes to exercise patience while it places them in schools under the Computerised Schools Selection and Placement System (CSSPS). All the stakeholders, it said, should not panic but exercise restraint as steps were being taken to carry out a smooth, fair and transparent placement devoid of problems. So far, the GES said it had not yet carried out any placement exercise this year since it was still in the process of releasing the 2011 placement results. The Head of the Public Relations Unit of the GES, Mr. Charles Parker-Allotey, told the Daily Graphic that the first batch of placement comprising 70 per cent of the qualified BECE candidates would be done by the 25th of September, 20ll. He said the placement for the rest of the candidates (30 per cent) who would be benefiting from the quota policy would be done on October 6, 20ll. President J. E. A. Mills in his State of the Nation Address this year announced that the policy to select 30 per cent of first-year SHS students from within a 10-mile radius of where schools were situated was to be restored from the 2011-2012 academic year. That, he said, was because the government had noted with concern the rate at which the computerised placement mechanism was blocking access to secondary education for pupils from basic schools in their catchment areas. Mr Parker-Allotey said the GES was working hard to carry out a transparent placement exercise, hence the current delay, adding that there was no need for parents to be anxious or agitated because of the delay. He noted that the GES would put contingency plans in place to ensure that first-year students did not miss any academic activity for the 2011-2012 academic year. Mr Parker-Allotey said the GES had stopped the sale of the scratch card since it had been miscommunicated to candidates and parents that the placement had been done. The CSSPS, which replaced the manual system of selection and placement into second cycle schools, is now in its seventh year of operation. It takes into consideration three (3) categories of candidates, namely existing year's qualified candidates, re-entry candidates (those who sat for the BECE in the last three (3) years, i.e. 2008, 2009 and 2010 and foreign candidates. The placement exercise is conducted based on software which has been specially developed for the programme. Some of the new features in the placement exercise are the re-organisation of the SMS texting involving all mobile phone networks and the use of scratch cards which were introduced for the first time last year to eliminate the delay candidates encountered in processing placement forms. Two weeks ago, the GES advised parents, guardians and the general public to desist from mounting pressure on GES officials for their wards to be admitted to their first choice schools. Government functionaries, it said, were also entreated not to put pressure on school heads for admission.