The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has called on the Mahama administration to move beyond announcements and deliver actual school placements for nearly 55,000 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates left without secondary school offers, while also creating clear second-chance pathways for more than 183,000 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) candidates who failed to secure a credit in Core Mathematics.
In a statement issued on September 7, 2026, and signed by Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Chairman of the NPP Policy Co-ordination Committee, the party said the government must stop reacting only after problems become public and instead provide “a seat in a classroom, or a place on a course.”
According to the NPP, 54,985 BECE candidates were initially told they had not qualified for secondary school. The government later reversed course and announced that 53,887 of them could attempt self-placement online.
The party dismissed the online portal as inadequate, arguing that by the time candidates log in, preferred schools and programmes will already be filled, leaving many with distant schools, unwanted courses, and costly transport or hostel expenses that families cannot afford.
“Ghanaian parents and candidates will judge the resolution of the challenge by one thing only: how many of the original 54,985 are sitting in a classroom, not how many were allowed to open a website,” the statement said.
The NPP pointed to official figures showing 859,828 vacancies for 623,072 BECE candidates, insisting the problem is not a shortage of places but a shortage of places in highly sought-after Category A schools. Some 313,283 candidates listed a Category A school as their first choice, yet those schools have only 76,417 available seats.
The party criticised the government for failing, after two years in office, to expand facilities, teachers and programmes in less popular schools or to fully utilise the 85 private schools already operating under Free SHS.
On the WASSCE side, the NPP highlighted that 183,233 candidates left secondary school without a credit in Core Mathematics — a requirement that opens doors to most degree programmes and many forms of training and employment. It noted that results in both English Language and Core Mathematics this year remain below 2024 levels, when the current administration took office.
Mathematics has recovered somewhat from last year’s sharp decline but has not returned to its previous standard, while English has fallen for two consecutive years.
The party rejected the government’s earlier explanation that stricter invigilation caused poor results, noting that invigilation remained strict this year yet some subjects improved. It argued that outcomes depend on teaching quality, learning time, materials, attendance and support rather than selective explanations.
Existing tools such as academic intervention programmes in public senior high schools, remedial classes, Free TVET across 186 institutions, the National Apprenticeship Policy and the Ghana Jobs and Skills Project are available but are not being deployed at the scale required, the NPP said.
The party listed five specific demands: place all 54,985 affected BECE candidates and publish the final placement outcomes; clarify the pass mark and rules used this year and when they were approved; utilise the 85 private Free SHS schools and strengthen under-subscribed public schools; properly fund academic intervention and remediation programmes; and publish the number of available TVET, apprenticeship and skills-training places by region and trade, matched against the 183,233 candidates who need them.
“The 54,985 need school places. The 183,233 need a second chance,” the statement concluded. “A Government that only moves when a problem reaches the news is not running the education sector. The Education Sector appears rather to be running the Government. The over 200,000 stranded Ghanaian children cannot wait for the next sudden move by Government.”
