Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu has instructed all heads of Senior High Schools, Senior High Technical Schools, and Technical and Vocational Institutes to admit students solely through the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS). In a directive issued via the Directors-General of the Ghana Education Service and the Ghana TVET Service, he cautioned school authorities against manual admissions or any process outside the approved CSSPS framework.
The directive warned that any head of school found admitting students outside CSSPS—once confirmed through enrolment data validation—would face sanctions under existing regulations and the Code of Ethics. According to the ministry, the measure reflects the government’s commitment to expanding access to secondary education while safeguarding the integrity of placement and enrolment. It further explained that strict compliance with approved vacancy declarations and enrolment thresholds is essential to achieving the objectives of the World Bank-funded Secondary Education Transformation for Access, Relevance and Results for Jobs Project (STARR-J), which seeks to improve teaching, learning, and infrastructure.
“The Ministry has observed that in previous placement cycles, particularly last year, there were significant discrepancies between the number of students placed through the system and the number of students actually enrolled on the ground.” “This indicates that some school heads admitted students outside the approved placement system,” it said. The Ministry of Education said the practice of under-declaring vacancies and later admitting students outside the CSSPS undermined the integrity of the placement process, created data inconsistencies and distorted enrolment planning.
That also affected budget projections, creating serious challenges for the timely and accurate disbursement of funds to schools. The directive explained that under the 2026 placement cycle, the CSSPS has been enhanced to include a built-in enrolment component to provide a comprehensive end-to-end system for the placement and enrolment of students. “Accordingly, once vacancies are declared, validated, and confirmed on the system, there shall be no further expansion of vacancies.
The exact number of students placed through the CSSPS shall constitute the approved enrolment for each school. No school head is permitted to admit any student outside the CSSPS,” the directive stressed. The Ministry of Education last Friday night released the 2026 senior high school placement for qualified Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) graduates amid mixed reactions from parents and guardians.
While those who got their first-choice schools were excited, those who had good grades but could not get their choices due to competition expressed disappointment and called for immediate changes to be effected. The situation was even worse for those who had to do self-placement on the CSSPS.
One other complaint that came up was the situation where students were placed in day schools far from where they reside. The Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, is expected to hold a press conference today to provide information on this year’s exercise and the way forward for those that have issues. This year’s placement followed a novelty introduced by the Ministry of Education, where BECE graduates had the opportunity to see their results before selecting their second cycle schools.
The move was to give them a fair idea of their performance before they make their choices. The BECE was written from May 4, 2026 to May 11, 2026. All, 620,141 candidates, comprising 304,349 boys and 315,792 girls, representing an increase in last year’s figure by almost 2.7 per cent, from 20,395 schools, sat for the examination across the country. A worried parent, Ama Essaba, said although her daughter was placed in Archbishop Porter’s Girls SHS, she was made a day student, and wondered how her daughter would be able to commute from Accra to Takoradi every day. “They would have to rectify this anomaly,” she said.
Kobina Badu, another parent, said he wanted his daughter, who secured aggregate 15, to be placed in Odorgonnor SHS as a boarder to study Science but she was placed in La Presbyterian SHS as a day student, again raising transportation issues. Asked whether he chose La Presby, he responded in the affirmative, but said he was sure of the daughter getting Odorgonnor SHS.
However, an excited parent, Stephen Kyere, whose daughter had aggregate nine, got her first choice, Holy Child Senior High School, in Cape Coast. “I knew my daughter was going to get it,” an elated Michael Etsibah told the Daily Graphic. For him, it is the third time his Holy Child School had picked his daughters, and therefore, expressed strong belief in the system.
Over the years, the GES has established Resolution Centres to address complaints and issues of parents and guardians. Similar centres are expected to be set up in the coming days. This year’s BECE candidates were required to choose two Category ‘A’ senior high schools, one with a boarding house and the other a day school within their district for the next phase of their education.
The adjustment is part of measures to improve the CSSPS to ensure smoother placement after the release of results, and to address repeated placement challenges under the programme.
Meanwhile, the performance of candidates in three of the four core subjects in this year’s West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) marked an improvement over last year’s assessment. The three subjects are Core Mathematics, Integrated Science and Social Studies, which recorded the best performance over the past four years.
Ghana participated in the May-June WASSCE-SC this year, rejoining the four other member countries of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC): Nigeria, The Gambia, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. This marked a return after five years of administering a Ghana-only version of the assessment due to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on the academic calendar.
According to the statistics released by WAEC on the 2026 WASSCE-SC results last Friday night, Core Mathematics saw a significant increase of 12.02 percentage points compared to last year. In total, 60.75 percent of the candidates (306,234) achieved grades A1-C6 in the 2026 exam, which is an improvement from 48.73 percent in 2025. However, this performance still fell short of the 66.86 percent recorded in 2024 and 62.23 percent in 2023.
In Integrated Science, the pass rate was 62.08 percent this year, up from 57.74 percent last year, reflecting a 4.34 percentage point increase. In the previous years, 58.77 percent of candidates achieved A1-C6 in 2024 and 66.82 percent in 2023.
The performance in Social Studies was the best over the last four examinations, with 78.04 percent passing this year compared to 55.82 percent in 2025, indicating a remarkable increase of 22.22 percentage points.
