More than 313,000 candidates selected a Category A school as their first choice in Ghana’s 2026 school placement exercise. Those schools had declared 76,417 vacancies.
The Ministry of Education says 604,567 candidates qualified for placement after the Basic Education Certificate Examination. Of those, 527,932 were automatically placed in senior high, senior high technical and technical and vocational institutions: 87.3% of the qualified group.
Schools declared 859,828 vacancies in total, more than the number of candidates who qualified.
The shortage is in the most sought-after schools, not in the system as a whole. Category B schools had 250,366 vacancies against 176,614 first-choice selections. Category C schools had 468,652 vacancies against 123,577 first-choice selections.
Hashmin Mohammed, press secretary to the Education Minister, said on 7 September that the difficulty reflects where candidates want to attend school. He said a candidate who misses a first-choice school can still be placed in a later choice where the requirements are met.
Candidates who were not automatically matched can use self-placement to choose from schools and programmes with remaining vacancies. The ministry has also opened 85 participating private senior high schools under the Free SHS programme as extra options.
A separate group of 57,259 candidates did not meet the ordinary requirements for automatic placement. Of that group, 35,382 received grade 9 in either English Language or Mathematics, 18,505 received grade 9 in both, and 3,372 did not sit the examination.
The ministry says candidates with grade 9 in English, mathematics or both may use self-placement. The 3,372 without results will not be placed now and are to be given another chance to sit the exam.
The release follows Akan Reports’ 2 September report that the Education Ministry postponed placement results while about 20,000 qualified students still lacked uploaded school choices.