The former Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has called for a deliberate expansion and upgrading of Senior High Schools (SHSs) across the country as part of efforts to address the growing pressure on placement in Category A schools.

Speaking on Adom FM, monitored by GhanaWeb on September 8, 2026, Dr Adutwum said the country needs to look beyond the immediate placement exercise and address the underlying problem of limited access to highly sought-after schools.

He said Ghana must deliberately create more schools capable of offering the quality of education associated with Category A institutions.

“Everyone wants the child to go to a first-class school, so when we were in government we built more schools and resourced them and also affiliated a headmaster with a Category A school,” he said.

According to him, upgrading existing schools and giving them the necessary resources could help spread demand and reduce the intense competition for places in a relatively small number of established Category A schools.

He cited Abomosu STEM Senior High School as an example of the approach.

“So, like what we did at Abomosu SHS, so we replicate PRESEC at Abomosu, so it was one of the best STEM schools in Ghana,” he said.

Dr Adutwum said the strategy should involve more than constructing classroom blocks, stressing the need to equip schools with the facilities and academic support required to make them genuinely competitive.

“We need to create more Category A schools, intentionally, science lab, do exchange programmes with the schools, all this was captured in our handover notes at the Ministry,” he said.

He proposed partnerships between established Category A schools and emerging institutions, including exchange programmes for teachers and students and the sharing of academic and management practices.

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The former minister said major education programmes should be properly handed over from one administration to another so that successful initiatives are not abandoned when there is a change of government.

“There should be a formal arrangement for deliberate presentation of over four days, nobody asked me about the STEM schools, there should be an intentional transition arrangement,” he said.

Dr Adutwum also argued that Ghana needs to improve how it tracks students' academic performance before they reach the final examination stage.

He said schools currently do not provide enough opportunities for students who struggle in particular subjects to receive interventions or retake courses during the school term.

“We don't give children any intervention to resit courses in school during the school term,” he said.

He said this was one of the reasons he advocated the introduction of transcripts alongside WASSCE results, arguing that a student's academic record should provide a broader picture of their performance.

“So, if they fail Mathematics, it is not new, that was why we wanted to introduce transcripts alongside the WASSCE results,” he said.

He said other countries had deliberate systems for tracking students' academic progress, but Ghana often allowed politics to influence education policy.

“Other countries have deliberate policies, in Ghana we politicise even education,” he said.

His comments come after 57,259 candidates who wrote the 2026 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) were not placed in the first round of the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS).

The Ministry of Education has since announced pathways for the affected candidates, including self-placement for eligible candidates who obtained a grade 9 in English Language and/or Mathematics.

A total of 35,382 candidates fell into that category, while 3,372 candidates who did not sit the examination are to be given an opportunity to resit.

JKB/BAI

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