On 1 April this year, the Minister of Education announced that students would only be allowed to choose their preferred senior high schools after their BECE results were released. The decision, made before the 2026 Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) guidelines were published, has sparked widespread frustration and a looming crisis in school admissions.
Despite warnings from education experts that the move would exacerbate existing challenges, the Ministry of Education (MoE), together with the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ghana Technical and Vocational Education and Training Service (GTVETS), rolled out a guideline that critics describe as “ne ti, ne fo” – neither head nor tail. The new rules force students to wait until after results, giving them only a week or two to complete a process that normally takes at least three months. Unlike universities, the CSSPS guidelines provide no clear cut‑off grades to guide applicants, leaving qualified candidates for top‑tier schools to compete for limited seats.
Press Secretary Hashmin Mohammed confirmed the scale of the competition, revealing that 313,283 students are vying for just 76,417 vacancies in Category A schools as their first choice. The new criteria also require students to select programmes across eight schools, strictly split into five boarding and three day options, with a further mandate that each candidate pick two Category A schools – one boarding and one day. Only 94 of the 1,085 senior high and TVET institutions nationwide fall into Category A, and they are unevenly spread across the 16 regions and 216 districts.
In the Eastern Region, for example, a female student from Akyem Oda who chooses Aburi Girls as her boarding option and St. Rose’s as her day option would face a 34‑kilometre commute if placed as a day student. The guidelines also exclude the possibility of using undersubscribed schools to ease pressure. Public presentation slides from the MoE, GES and GTVETS show that no new public schools were built or upgraded between 2025 and 2026; the only additions were 45 absorbed Category C schools and 15 pilot private schools.
To address the immediate crisis, experts argue that the government should temporarily revert to the double‑track system, utilise undersubscribed schools and drop the “Category A as day” requirement. This would double the 76,417 Category A vacancies to 152,834, instantly easing pressure on families. WASCCE results from 2021 to 2024 show that students placed under the double‑track system consistently secured top regional spots at the WAEC International Excellence Awards, refuting claims that the system compromises quality.
Students currently placed in day schools far from home should be encouraged to self‑place as boarders in undersubscribed facilities, and day candidates in schools operating below capacity should be converted to boarders. Eliminating the compulsory single Category A day choice would halve the initial scramble of 313,283 applicants, allowing smoother placement for all.
For now, the government must act swiftly to restore confidence in the school placement process and prevent the chaos that has already begun to unfold across Ghana’s education sector.
