A/R: Free SHS Secretariat refutes bribery allegations in school placement process

The Deputy Ashanti Regional Coordinator for the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) Secretariat, Michael Owusu Baafi, has strongly rejected accusations of bribery in the ongoing school placement process.

In an interview with Citi News on Friday, October 10, 2025, Mr. Owusu Baafi stated that the Secretariat does not charge any fees for placement services and advised parents to avoid middlemen.

“Here we don’t pay money. We don’t pay money to get admission. We have schools available. When you come and you prefer any of those schools, we’ll put your ward in it. If you come through an agent, the agent will come here, we’ll do it for the agent for free, and maybe that person is the one coming to charge you.

So, if you have any challenge, anything, come to the centre. Don’t go to a second party or a third party; we don’t do that,” he said.

Mr. Owusu Baafi further explained that the Secretariat had already resolved over 6,000 placement-related issues.

“We have not considered the numbers, but we have almost 6,000 people coming in to bring their complaints. And as the system has changed from previous years, what we used to do, now we’ll send all the reports to Accra, and then they do it from Accra,” he added.

He reassured parents that there are still plenty of schools available for placement and reiterated that the entire process remains completely free of charge.

“And even at the centre, we have schools that are available; the schools are here. Some of the headmasters, too, have come to us that if you get students, we should just send it to them, they will do the protocol for those students for free.

So, if you have any issue and you go behind, you go see somebody somewhere, and the person takes your money, it’s not us, we don’t take any money here. We don’t deal with monetary issues here,” he said.