The Head of Public Relations at the Ghana Education Service (GES) has strongly rejected claims by New Patriotic Party (NPP) Communications Team member Kwasi Kwarteng suggesting that 54,985 students did not qualify to access Senior High School education, insisting that no such communication has ever come from the Ministry of Education, GES or the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS).
According to the GES PRO, what has been clearly and unambiguously communicated is that 54,985 students did not qualify for automatic placement specifically because they obtained a Grade 9 in either English Language or Mathematics, or both, a criterion the PRO said has been part of the Free SHS policy since its very first day of implementation.
To contextualise this year’s figures, the PRO presented a year-by-year breakdown of students who failed to qualify for automatic placement over recent years.
According to the data cited, 187,542 students did not qualify for automatic placement in 2022, followed by 108,025 in 2023, and 115,646 in 2024, with all affected students in each of these years required to go through the self-placement process.
Historical Comparison Shows Significant Improvement
Comparing these figures to the current year’s 54,985 candidates undergoing self-placement, the PRO argued that any objective observer should recognise the scale of improvement recorded under the current administration.
“If you look at the terrible numbers of students who were not automatically placed between 2022 and 2024, any objective mind should applaud this Ministry and GES for reducing the numbers from the 100,000s to the 50,000s, that is roughly a 50 percent reduction,”
Daniel Fenyi
The PRO was pointed in criticising Kwarteng and the NPP over their characterisation of the placement figures, accusing them of spreading misinformation, miseducation and propaganda around the issue.
The PRO expressed surprise that the opposition would pursue this line of argument, suggesting that the Ghanaian public in 2026 has become considerably more informed and less susceptible to political manipulation on matters of public policy.
BECE Clarified as a Placement Exam, Not A Qualification Barrier
Central to the PRO’s rebuttal was a detailed clarification of what the BECE actually determines within Ghana’s current education framework.
According to the PRO, the BECE has effectively evolved into a placement examination, one that does not determine whether a student qualifies for secondary education at all, but rather determines which specific school a student is placed into.
The PRO further disclosed that Junior High School and Senior High School education have now been merged administratively under a single GES division known as the Secondary Education Division, a restructuring intended to reinforce the principle that secondary education, whether junior or senior, constitutes a right for every Ghanaian child rather than a privilege to be earned.
“Qualification for SHS education is already a given, we can only talk about which students qualify for automatic placement and which students must use self-placement, not which students qualify for SHS education.”
Daniel Fenyi
Hypothetical Response to the Opposition’s Framing
Shifting tone, the PRO invited readers to temporarily accept the NPP’s framing at face value, hypothetically assuming that the 54,000 affected students had indeed been excluded from school placement entirely, with no self-placement option provided.
Under this hypothetical scenario, the PRO argued that public disagreement over such a decision would have prompted government to listen to citizens’ concerns and respond accordingly, precisely what has occurred with the introduction of the self-placement pathway for affected candidates.
Contrasting Government’s Responsiveness with Past Administrations
The PRO used this hypothetical framing to draw a broader contrast with what was described as the conduct of a previous administration, alleging that government workers who previously disagreed with official policy risked insults, victimisation, transfer or dismissal for holding dissenting views.
By comparison, the PRO argued that the current government’s willingness to welcome, listen to, and even integrate opposing views into its policy decisions represents a marked improvement in political culture, regardless of how the underlying placement statistics are interpreted by critics.
The exchange adds to an increasingly public back-and-forth between government officials and opposition figures over the handling of this year’s BECE placement exercise, with both sides now contesting not only the raw figures involved, but the very framing of what those figures represent within Ghana’s evolving secondary education system.
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