President John Dramani Mahama has broken ground for the construction of a 5,000-seat multipurpose assembly hall complex for Ghana Senior High School (GHANASCO) in Tamale.
The project, which is the first of its kind in Ghana, is to help meet the growing population needs of the School.
President Mahama and his wife, First Lady Lordina Mahama, both alumni of GHANASCO, on Saturday graced the School’s 65th Anniversary Celebration in Tamale on the theme: “GHANASCO at 65: A Legacy of Excellence, Inspiring Future Generations”.
Academic progression
From a humble beginning of 70 students and a handful of teachers, the School’s population has grown to 4,524 students, supported by 172 teachers and 52 non-teaching staff across six academic departments: general science, general arts, business, agriculture, home economics, and visual arts.
GHANASCO has risen to become a beacon of excellence in Ghana’s educational landscape, a home of knowledge, discipline, and hope.
Other construction works underway
Construction work has also begun on an ultramodern astroturf project, which is being spearheaded by First Lady Lordina Mahama.
Other projects which are being sponsored by the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) for the School include the construction of a two-story, 12-unit classroom block to reduce congestion and promote effective living, a two-story boys’ dormitory block, two 12-seater toilet facilities, and the rehabilitation and equipment of the science laboratory.
President Mahama also commissioned a SMART Classroom Block.
Lack of dedicated funding for SHS?
In his keynote address, the President said one of the major setbacks of Free Senior High School (SHS) was the lack of dedicated funding, and so the nation’s headmasters and their staff were always frustrated because the money to run the schools always came in late, and so they had to go around begging for food for the school children.
“And I remember in many instances our northern schools would send an appeal to all students to bring food to feed our students. That is a thing of the past now because of the dedicated funding for free SHS, we can release the money to the schools and to the Buffer Stock Company on time so that children can be fed nutritious meals,” the President stated.
However, he noted that one of the initiatives coming up was to try and resolve the problem of the school placement system.
President Mahama said the system had run into problems because schools were categorised in three categories: A, B and C, stating that about half of the students’ population were in category C schools, which most people do not want.
He said the Government needed to improve the infrastructure in category C and category B schools so that everywhere, every school would be a category A school; saying, “that is how it should be.”
He said in the 2026 Budget Statement and Economic Policy of the Government, the government was selecting the first 30 category C schools to build science laboratories, dormitories, classroom blocks, and Science, Technical, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) laboratories.
This will help expand those category C schools to either category B or category A to ensure that in any school a child gets, he would feel confident of the chance of making it into tertiary education.
The President said 30 of the abandoned E-Blocks, which started under his previous administration, had been selected for completion in next year’s budget and that they were going to put resources in and finish all 30 E-Blocks.
With regard to the government’s policy where secondary schools will have a poultry farm and a livestock farm, the President said GHANASCO would be one of the schools selected for the project.
“We will establish a poultry farm here and a livestock farm so that you don’t have to go to the market to buy your meat, you take your meat from your own farm,” he said.
“And so when we have the farm, you have to volunteer to go and feed the chickens and the sheep and the goats.
“And again, the Headmaster will have no excuse when you go to the dining hall and there’s no meat in your food. And so we’ll select GHANASCO as one of the early ones to participate in this programme.”
Education promises 2,000 furniture for GHANASCO
The Minister for Education, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, announced that before 31st December, 2,000 pieces of furniture would be delivered to GHANASCO and some other schools.
He said the GETFund would acquire a number of buses in 2026 and that about 50 schools, including GHANASCO, would benefit from that.
Mr Iddrisu said he was aware that a number of Headmasters were without vehicles or pickups and that the President was giving his due attention, and that the GETFund was undertaking a procurement process to get that done.
Mr Douglas Haruna Yakubu, GHANASCO Headmaster, thanked President Mahama for giving the School a 30-seater bus.
He expressed gratitude to First Lady Lordina Mahama for building the Lordina Mahama Hall for the female students of the school.
Alhaji Ibrahim Abdul Fatawu, President of the Old GHANASCANs Association (OGA), expressed delight at the level of progress in the construction of the School’s fence well.
