Out of the 672 senior high schools that were ranked by the Ministry of Education according to their performance in the WASSCE for School Candidates between 2013 and 2017, the school stood tall.
According to the rankings, the average performance of students from the St James’ Seminary and SHS was 98.8 per cent under the four-year period, meaning that 98.8 per cent of the total candidature of the school qualified for tertiary institutions.
The SHS Rankings by the Ministry of Education made available to the Junior Graphic indicated that the Opoku Ware School (OWASS) in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region followed the St James Seminary in second place. The average performance of the students of OWASS under the four-year period was 88.2 per cent.
In third place was the Wesley Girls’ High School (Wey Gey Hey) in Cape Coast in the Central Region which recorded an average performance of 87.6 per cent in the WASSCE for School Candidates.
The Holy Child School also in Cape Coast followed Wey Gey Hey closely with 87.5 pe cent while Adisadel College in Cape Coast came fifth with 86.3 per cent.
In the sixth position was the St Peter’s SHS at Nkwatia Kwahu in the Eastern Region with 84.8 per cent and then St Augustine’s College in Cape Coast, seventh with 83.1 per cent while the Notre Dame Seminary/SHS took the eighth position with 81.6 per cent.
Two single-sex schools, St Rose’s SHS Akwatia in the Eastern Region and St Louis SHS in Kumasi came ninth and 10th respectively. While St Rose’s had an average performance of 81.6, St Louis recorded 81.2 per cent.
It must be noted that it was based on the rankings of the schools that SHSs and technical institutes (TIs) were put into various categories for selection by Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates for placement into second cycle schools this year.
A look at the top 10 schools showed that seven of them: St James, OWASS, Holy Child, St Peter’s, St Augustine’s, Notre Dame, St Rose’s and St Louis were mission schools under the Catholic Education Unit.
The Saviour SHS in Osiem in the Eastern Region was 11th with 80.8 per cent, St Ann’s Girls SHS, 12th with 80.6 per cent, Tongor Senior High Technical School in the Volta Region, 13th with 80.0 per cent.
Popular schools such as Mfantsipim School, Presbyterian Boys SHS, Legon, Prempeh College, Pope John SHS and Junior Seminary, Aburi Girls SHS, Accra Academy and the Tepa SHS, took the 14th to the 20th positions respectively. On their average performance, they each recorded 79.0, 78.1, 76.6, 75.8, 74.5, 73.8 and 73.7.
Other popular schools including Bishop Herman, Achimota, Archbishop Porter Girls, Mfantsiman Girls and St Thomas Aquinas, placed 26th, 29th, 32nd, 39th, 45th respectively. The average performance of each of the schools was 68.4 per cent, 66.1 per cent, 64.8 per cent, 59.0 per cent and 57.4 per cent.