The Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu has directed all heads of Senior High Schools, Senior High Technical Schools, and Technical and Vocational Institutes not to admit outside the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS).

In a directive communicated through the Directors-General of the Ghana Education Service and the Ghana TVET Service, the Education Minister strongly cautioned all heads of second-cycle institutions to desist from admitting students manually or outside the approved CSSPS process.

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“Any head of school found to have admitted students outside the CSSPS, upon confirmation through enrolment data validation, shall be sanctioned in accordance with the applicable regulations and the Code of Ethics,” the directive, a copy of which the Daily Graphic has seen, stated.

The directive, according to the ministry was in line with the government’s commitment to improving access to secondary education and strengthening the integrity of placement and enrolment processes.

It explained that a critical part of achieving the objectives of the World Bank-funded Secondary Education Transformation for Access, Relevance and Results for Jobs Project, known as STARR-J, intended to expand and improve teaching and learning infrastructure, was strict adherence to approved vacancy declarations and enrolment thresholds.

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“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 school 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.

Reactions

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.

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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 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.

2026 WASSCE-SC results out

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 returned to the May-June WASSCE-SC this year, joining the four other member countries of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) – Nigeria, The Gambia, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

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This was after five years of writing the Ghana Only Version of the assessment occasioned by the COVID-19 outbreak which affected the academic calendar.

Statistics

Per this year’s statistics as contained in the release of the 2026 WASSCE-SC results by WAEC last Friday night, Core Mathematics had a 12.02 percentage point increase over that of last year.

In all, 60.75 per cent of the candidates (306,234) excelled by recording A1-C6 in the 2026 WASSCE-SC as against the 48.73 per cent in 2025.

This is despite of the outcome falling short of the 66.86 per cent in 2024 and 62.23 per cent in 2023.

Integrated Science recorded 62.08 per cent pass this year as against 57.74 per cent last year, a percentage increase of 4.34.

In 2024, 58.77 per cent of the candidates had A1-C6 and then 66.82 per cent in 2023.

This year, the performance in Social Studies was the best over the last four examination, with 78.04 per cent as against 55.82 per cent in 2025, a 22.22 percentage points increase.