Free SHS Secretariat busts two in school placement bribery scheme

Two people have been arrested for allegedly attempting to manipulate school placements for multiple students and engaging in bribery within the school placement system.

Deputy National Coordinator of the Free SHS Secretariat, Dr. Belinda Glover, told Citi News that some individuals have been showing up at the placement centre with multiple placement forms, falsely claiming to be parents in order to change programmes or alter students’ boarding status.

“So we have been able to arrest some of them. In fact, they come with multiple sheets trying to make changes, either from day to boarding or from boarding to day, or sometimes changing the program.

“Because the ideal thing is that you can’t have more than five children going to secondary school at the same time,” she said.

“So, we have been able to track down those people, and then we’ve managed to hand some of them over to the police to deal with them. So we are saying that you can’t come here more than two times. Anything beyond two means that you are in here to do business with us, and we are not ready to accept that,” Dr. Glover added.

She further revealed that the suspects had been collecting money from parents to influence placement changes and assured that investigations were ongoing to address such misconduct.

“So far, we have about two that we have handed over to the police. Yes, and we have also announced that you can’t come here, wait more than two hours. Beyond two, you are in for business, and we are not here for business, so we will arrest you.

“You can’t tell me that you have five children going to senior high at the same time, no. And you know, we follow up, we realise that these people are just collecting money from people, and then coming here and using us instead to make money,” she explained.

The arrests come in the wake of several reports of bribery involving parents seeking to influence their children’s school placements.