Former Ministry of Education Public Relations Officer, Kwesi Kwarteng, has called on the government to review the current Senior High School (SHS) placement criteria to give more Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates the opportunity to continue their education.
He is particularly advocating a gradual reversal of the requirement that students must pass both English Language and Mathematics to qualify for placement in Senior High Schools (SHSs) and Senior High Technical Schools (SHTSs).
His call follows the exclusion of nearly 55,000 candidates who sat for the 2026 BECE from the SHS/SHTS placement process.
According to the Coordinator of the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) Secretariat, Sherif Sulemana, about 565,000 of the nearly 620,000 candidates who took the examination met the requirements for placement.
However, Mr Kwarteng said the number of candidates left out should not automatically be seen as an indication that they failed the BECE. He attributed much of the exclusion to the current placement policy.
“My point is that if you look at the 54,000 [about 55,000] students that have been denied access to the senior high schools, it has nothing to do with students failing necessarily, but has more to do with the placement policy that this government is using.
“Instead of creating barriers that limit students and prevent access for those students, I think we should be very progressive and reverse back to the earlier placement policies that we have,” he said.
Mr Kwarteng explained that under the previous NPP administration, students who failed one of the two subjects but passed the other could still gain admission and have the opportunity to improve at the secondary level.
“When we were in government, the placement policy that we were using was that if a student fails English and passes Mathematics, that student is given an opportunity to proceed to the senior high to justify himself,” he said.
“If a student fails Mathematics but passes English, the student is given an opportunity to justify himself,” he added.
He said the current requirement is stricter because a student who fails either subject is denied placement.
“But the current situation is that if you fail either English or Mathematics, you are not given an opportunity. In our case, what was happening is that if you pass any one of them, you go. But this time, they are saying that you have to pass the two,” Mr Kwarteng said.
He argued that the policy could deny opportunities to students who have the potential to succeed at the SHS level.
“I am not a fan of systems and policies that intentionally set barriers for ordinary Ghanaian students,” he said.
Mr Kwarteng therefore proposed that students who pass at least one of the two subjects should be allowed to proceed to secondary school.
“So that if you pass either English or Mathematics, you are given the opportunity. And this time around, this whole policy about you having to pass the two of them is just a policy that the government has introduced,” he said.
He also questioned whether financial considerations were influencing the placement policy, suggesting that the government should be transparent if restrictions are being used to control the cost of expanding access to SHS education.
“It is not the student performing; it is a government discriminatory policy that has caused a barrier,” he said.
