President John Mahama says the government is building 16 new senior high schools under a $300 million World Bank-backed programme intended to expand secondary-school capacity and reduce reliance on the double-track system.
Mahama announced the school count on 11 September while inspecting GETFund projects at Han Senior High School in the Upper West Region. He said the World Bank facility was also meant to expand infrastructure at existing schools that remain on double-track schedules.
The financing itself was approved earlier. On 16 June 2026 the World Bank approved $300 million in IDA financing for the Secondary Education Transformation for Access, Relevance, and Results for Jobs project, known as STARR-J.
The World Bank says the project includes rehabilitation, upgrading and new construction, and is implemented by the Ministry of Education. It is intended to expand learning spaces and to equip young people with knowledge and skills for further education and work.
The Bank estimated that Ghana’s public secondary schools could face a shortfall of more than 850,000 effective seats by 2040 without additional capacity. The June release does not itself state that 16 new schools would be built.
Mahama said the government’s objective is to eliminate double-track schooling by the end of 2027. That is a government target rather than a completion date in the World Bank approval.
The President also said the government is changing how it applies the community-day school model. Community-day schools would be concentrated in more densely populated areas, while selected rural schools with wide catchment areas would be converted to boarding institutions after the required facilities are built.