Spokesperson for the NPP Education Policy Committee, Dr Kwabena Bempah Tandoh, said on Eyewitness News that the government has deliberately limited access to the Free SHS programme by disqualifying about 55,000 candidates from the 2026 SHS placement exercise.
He pointed out that the number of students failing to meet placement requirements has risen sharply, with 10,184 students failing in 2024 and 13,019 in 2025, compared with the 55,000 disqualified this year.
Dr Bempah Tandoh questioned the decision to change the calculation used for the 2026 placement, arguing that the new method has excluded thousands of students from the placement system.
"In this placement period, all of a sudden, some 55,000 students were disqualified from placement. It was an effort by this government to limit access because, in 2024, the number of students who didn’t qualify was just about 10,184," he said.
He further alleged that the move is part of a broader attempt to undermine the Free SHS programme, although he noted that the government has said it intends to review, rather than end, the policy.
The CSSPS Secretariat announced that about 55,000 candidates who sat for the 2026 BECE did not meet the requirements for placement into Senior High Schools or Senior High Technical Schools, while 565,000 of the nearly 620,000 candidates qualified.
What follows is a government review of the Free SHS policy and the placement calculation, with stakeholders awaiting the next steps.
