Ghana’s Free Senior High School (Free SHS) policy alone cannot achieve universal secondary education. A policy brief by Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) reveals that approximately 1.2 million children aged four to 17 are not attending school. The brief emphasises that the large number of children outside the education system indicates a significant gap in the efforts to attain universal secondary education, as those who do not enter basic school or leave the system early cannot benefit from Free SHS.
While Free SHS and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) programs can eliminate financial barriers at the secondary level, they cannot reach children who never start basic education, those who drop out before completing Junior High School (JHS), or those who fail to transition into secondary school after completing JHS. This information is based on Ghana’s 2021 Population and Housing Census, which found that 9.5 percent of children aged four to 17 have never attended school.
Eduwatch points out that the issue arises well before the transition to SHS, with children being lost at various stages of the education pipeline. The brief identifies three major points where children drop out: those who never enter or leave basic education prematurely; those who do not complete JHS; and JHS graduates who do not proceed to public SHS or TVET.
Recent UNESCO estimates cited by Eduwatch put Ghana’s lower-secondary completion rate at about 79 per cent in 2024, suggesting that roughly one in five children did not complete JHS. The organisation said this means a significant number of potential SHS entrants are lost before the Free SHS policy can reach them.
The challenge is compounded by difficulties in the transition from JHS to secondary education. Eduwatch estimates that public-sector transition efficiency fell from about 92 per cent in 2024 to 82 per cent in 2025. The brief said Ghana produces close to 600,000 BECE candidates annually, but not all ultimately transition into the public Free SHS/TVET system.
Eduwatch said Ghana therefore needs to shift from treating Free SHS as a stand-alone solution to secondary education access and instead strengthen the entire education pipeline. It called for greater investment in basic education access, retention and completion, including foundational learning, teachers, school infrastructure, teaching and learning materials, school feeding and interventions to reduce household education costs.
The organisation also recommended a system to track JHS completers who do not enter public SHS/TVET to determine whether they move into private schools, TVET, apprenticeships or other pathways, or drop out altogether. “Achieving universal secondary education therefore requires policy attention across the entire education pipeline rather than at the point of secondary admission alone,” the brief said.
Eduwatch’s position comes as Ghana seeks to close the gap between its current secondary education participation and the 2030 universal access benchmark. The brief estimates Ghana’s secondary gross enrolment ratio at 75.7 per cent in 2024, leaving the country about 24 percentage points short of the 100 per cent benchmark.
Source: William Narh
