In a high-stakes pivot to salvage Ghana’s secondary education narrative, Education Minister Hon. Haruna Iddrisu has announced a massive $200 million World Bank funding injection designed to permanently dismantle the controversial double-track system.
The announcement comes at a moment of acute systemic friction, as the Ministry simultaneously scrambled to distance itself from the 2025 WASSCE results – a “slump” that saw more than 200,000 students fail Core Mathematics.
“The government has secured $200 million from the World Bank to work to end the double-track… We intend, as I have announced publicly, to convert 30 category C schools to B, and 10 category B schools to A, and expand infrastructure in all the category A schools”
Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Education
The funding, secured under the Ghana Secondary Learning Improvement Programme (GSLIP), is being positioned as the architectural anchor for a sector buckling under the weight of rapid expansion.
By upgrading 30 Category C schools to Category B and 10 Category B schools to Category A, the Ministry is betting that a massive infrastructure surge can cure the contact-hour deficit that has come to define the double-track era.
According to the Minister, currently, the “Category A” hunger has created a bottleneck where 393,000 applicants fight for just 76,000 slots. By converting lower-tier schools and completing 30 abandoned E-Blocks, the government is attempting to “reset” the school placement market.
Hon. Iddrisu acknowledged St. Peter’s School for ending double-track ahead of schedule, while noting a key disparity the $200m is legally mandated to resolve in the Oti and North East regions – which currently possess zero Category A institutions.
Accountability Gap
While the Education Minister leaned into the future with World Bank cash, he pulled back from the present failure of the 2025 WASSCE results – where only 48.73% passed Mathematics.
The results have triggered a national outcry with stakeholders labeling it the “worst in recent years,” but Hon. Iddrisu was quick to reject any executive culpability, as the NDC government is barely a year old.
In a blunt refusal of responsibility, the Tamale South MP argued that the results are a “wake-up call” rather than a policy indictment. He blamed the decline on a combination of “memorization-led” learning and the inherent flaws of the double-track system itself – an inheritance his administration is now effectively liquidating.
“I refuse to accept that the government of President Mahama and the Ministry of Education… would accept responsibility for those poor performers. In Ghana, when students perform well, we credit the students. When they fail, we blame the Minister”
Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Education
Hon. Iddrisu also noted that the 2025 exams focused on application-based questions which “tripped up” candidates used to numeric memorization. To address this, the Ministry is moving beyond buildings to “teacher capacity improvement.”
President Mahama has reportedly tasked the Ministry with a “conveyor belt,” audit, ensuring that by the time a child reaches SHS, the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic are already solidified. This suggests that the $200m is not just for bricks and mortar, but for a total re-engineering of the student-teacher contact hour.
“Systemic challenges such as outdated school infrastructure, the rapid expansion of Free Senior High School, and limited teacher contact hours under the double-track system contributed to the poor results”
Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Education
With the $200m set to hit the ground in 2026, the Minister framed the current academic crisis as a necessary correction – a true reflection of a system that can no longer survive on inflated scores or overcrowded classrooms.
“Vigilance is not going to go away. Strict invigilation is not going to go away and so we must make sure that the children are well prepared to be on their own,” the Minister added.
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