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527,932 BECE candidates placed in SHSs, TVET institutions
A total of 527,932 candidates have been successfully placed in Senior High Schools (SHSs), Senior High Technical Schools (SHTSs), and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions for the 2026/2027 academic year.
The figure represents approximately 87.3 per cent of the 604,567 candidates who qualified for placement after the 2026 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
The Deputy Minister for Education, in a press statement on the 2026 Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) results, announced that the placemepnt results were released at 10:00 p.m. on September 4, 2026.
Of the candidates placed, 276,521 are females and 251,411 are males.
A total of 623,072 candidates sat for this year’s BECE, representing an increase of 19,744 over the 603,328 candidates who wrote the examination last year.
The Deputy Minister explained that although the system had 859,828 declared vacancies, many candidates concentrated their first-choice selections on highly subscribed Category A schools.
According to the statement, 313,283 candidates selected Category A schools as their first choice, compared with 176,614 for Category B schools, 123,577 for Category C schools, and 995 for participating private SHSs and SHTSs.
However, Category A schools had 76,417 declared vacancies, while Category B and Category C schools had 250,366 and 468,652 vacancies respectively.
He explained that the figures showed that the main challenge was not a lack of spaces in the secondary education system, but a mismatch between the schools candidates preferred and where vacancies were available.
“While 313,283 candidates expressed a first preference for Category A schools, the declared vacancies in those schools stood at 76,417,” the statement noted.
The Deputy Minister also announced that 57,259 candidates had not met the requirements for automatic placement.
The figure includes 3,372 candidates who did not sit for the examination, 35,382 who obtained a score of 9 in either English Language or Mathematics, and 18,505 who obtained a score of 9 in both subjects.
He said candidates who obtained a score of 9 in either English Language or Mathematics, or in both subjects, would be allowed to use the self-placement system to select schools and programmes with available vacancies.
However, the 3,372 candidates whose results are unavailable will not be placed at this stage. They will be given a second opportunity to resit the examination before progressing along the appropriate educational pathway.
The Deputy Minister urged affected candidates and their parents not to lose hope, but to take advantage of the self-placement opportunity and consider the full range of available schools and programmes.
He also encouraged parents and guardians to guide their children in making choices based on available vacancies, programmes offered, location, and their educational needs.
For the 2026/2027 academic year, 85 private Senior High Schools are participating in the Free SHS programme.
The statement indicated that the participation of the private schools would provide additional options for candidates and help reduce pressure on highly subscribed public schools.
Candidates undertaking self-placement have therefore been encouraged to consider participating private SHSs alongside available public SHSs, SHTSs, and TVET institutions.
The Deputy Minister further announced that placement resolution centres had been established at the regional and national levels to assist candidates and parents with genuine placement challenges.
Parents and candidates have been advised to first seek assistance from the Ghana Education Service (GES) or Ghana TVET Service offices at the regional level.
For cases requiring national-level intervention, the GNAT Hall in Accra has been designated as the National Placement Resolution Centre.
He said technical teams had been deployed to assist candidates, parents, and guardians and address genuine placement challenges as efficiently as possible.
The Deputy Minister also announced that the CSSPS had been upgraded to include an admission portal, allowing parents and guardians to enrol their children and download admission forms without travelling to schools.
He cautioned heads of schools against admitting or enrolling students outside the placement system, warning that violators would face appropriate sanctions.
He explained that such admissions could create data discrepancies and disbursement challenges for schools.
The Deputy Minister stressed that school placement was free and warned parents, guardians, and candidates not to pay money to anyone who promised to secure or change a placement.
“There is no legitimate protocol placement that requires the payment of money,” he stated.
He urged anyone who demanded money in exchange for a placement to report the matter to the Ghana Police Service or the Office of the Special Prosecutor.
Parents and candidates were also advised to protect their placement credentials and avoid giving them to unauthorised persons.
The Deputy Minister congratulated all candidates who participated in the 2026 BECE and urged parents and guardians to support their children in making realistic school choices.
He said the government would continue to invest in infrastructure, teachers, teaching and learning resources, school leadership, and educational outcomes across the secondary education system.
He added that the ultimate objective was to build a system in which every school became a school of choice, every learner had a pathway to progress, and no Ghanaian child was denied the opportunity to develop their potential.
By: Jacob Aggrey
The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has urged Ghanaians to make regular physical activity part of their daily routines to improve blood glucose control and reduce the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
It said regular exercise helped the body use insulin more effectively, thereby improving blood sugar regulation and contributing to better overall health.
The call forms part of the Service’s 30-day diabetes awareness campaign ahead of this year’s World Diabetes Day, which is observed on November 14.
The GHS encouraged people to engage in simple physical activities such as walking, dancing, cycling and gardening.
It noted that staying physically active did not necessarily require expensive gym memberships, as everyday activities, including household chores, could contribute to maintaining an active lifestyle.
The Service advised adults to aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity each week, stressing the importance of starting with manageable activities and gradually building consistency.
It further encouraged people living with diabetes to combine regular physical activity with prescribed treatment and a healthy diet to help manage the condition.
The awareness campaign, being undertaken ahead of World Diabetes Day, is aimed at promoting healthy lifestyle choices and encouraging early action to prevent and manage diabetes.
This year’s World Diabetes Day is being observed under the theme “early action on diabetes,” with November 14 set aside to raise awareness of the condition and the importance of prevention, early detection and proper management.
By Esinam Jemima Kuatsinu
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We take certain things for granted but it should not be so, especially if you can read, write and understand what is said on TV and Radio in English. Usually at 7:00 pm, I watch the news on one of the popular media channels and it was no big deal until a few days ago.
As I listened to a radio presenter on a popular Fm station, the important role my parents played in my life, as far as education is concerned, suddenly dawned on me. The usual style at the start of the programme, is to play a very funny interaction between a man who identifies himself as Barry …and a Ghanaian man called Akwasi.
This Barry guy apparently was talking to Akwasi by phone and he was speaking in English and Akwasi asked him to speak English, meanwhile Akwasi did not understand the English language, so he quickly asked the Barry guy to change to Twi, when he realised that the intonation was not the normal Ghanaian one.
I really had a good laugh and that was when I realised that my parents had indeed helped me by giving me access to education.
Imagine going to enter a place and they have written push on the door frame and because you cannot read, you decide to assume that you need to pull the door towards you and the embarrassment you will go through, pulling with all your might and especially at places with glass doors at the main entrance, everybody watching you and you struggling with the door for quite a few seconds before deciding to push.
It is in moments like that, that you either start blessing your parents or otherwise, depending on whether they sent you to school or not. There are things we consider as little that we take for granted but in reality, it is a big deal if you are not educated.
I recently had to go to an office located in the Ridge Hospital area and it was located on one of the floors of a story building. The protocol requires that visitors to the place log their details in a book provided for that purpose.
You write the date, your name etc., the usual. Imagine for a moment that you are Akosua Seiwaa, an uneducated person, who is going to see someone in one of the offices in the building and you are required to fill the log book with your details. It suddenly generates a stressful situation for you.
The FM programme really set me thinking about how grateful we ought to be to our parents or guardians who gave us access to education such that we have the confidence to go boldly to all kinds of places without stress.
Just imagine going to a hospital and given a whole bunch of medication. As is usually the case, the pharmacist mentions your name and immediately starts telling you the number of times and the various dosage you are to take them.
He or she then goes to the next person and chances are you are likely to forget some of the instructions. If you are uneducated, how are you going to identify the right dosages and any other special instructions you need. There is a saying that ‘If you can read this, thank a teacher.’ I think it should rather be, ‘If you can read this, thank your parents.’
There was another recording of a hilarious conversation on the show between two ladies one of whom was uneducated and did not understand “It’s been a while”. Apparently a church member met her and she said to her it’s been a while and did not know how to respond till a young girl she was walking with explained to her in Twi “Ose ohuu wo aky3”.
She was bitterly complaining to the friend that had it not been the young girl, she would have been greatly embarrassed with this “it’s been a while, it’s been a while” that the church member said to her. Do not laugh alone. Share. God bless.
