SHSs mustn’t be classified as Category A, B, or C – Majority leader

The Majority Leader in Parliament, Mahama Ayariga, calling for reform in the education sector, has urged the government to scrap the categorization of Senior High Schools into A, B, and C categories.

Speaking on the Floor of Parliament, he stressed the urgent need to fix inequalities in the country’s education system, particularly the disparities between Category A and Category B Senior High Schools.

The Member of Parliament for Bawku Central said the recent placement of students into second-cycle schools exposed a systemic imbalance that undermines the goal of equal opportunity in education.

“There must be no Grade A or Grade B schools,” he stated, adding that “We spend equally on all teachers in all schools, and this House must do whatever it takes to fix all schools and demand equal performance.”

The Majority leader called on Parliament to begin demanding accountability and higher standards of performance from all public service institutions, including the Ghana Education Service, Ghana Health Service, and the Judicial Service.

“We pay equally to all schools. This House must begin to demand accountability and the highest standards of performance from all our services—education, health, judicial, and others,” Mr Ayariga added.

In other news, the Ministry of Education (MoE) has denied media reports that plans are underway to downgrade some Category A second-cycle schools in the country amid high demand for such top-tier Senior High Schools (SHSs) in this year’s school placement.

In an interview monitored by Pretertiary.com, Hashim Mohammed, the spokesman for the Ministry of Education, said the central government is planning to upgrade some Category B second-cycle schools to Category A status and also 10 Category C second-cycle schools to Category B status in the year 2026.

Saying the Education Minister’s earlier comments had been misinterpreted by some media outlets, the Education Ministry spokesperson said the government intends to invest heavily in infrastructure in both Category A and B schools to address the growing demand for placement.

“I think the Minister said we need to improve infrastructure in Category A schools, as well as upgrade some of the infrastructure in Category B schools, and elevate them to Category A schools. This is because the number of students who demand Category A schools is very high,” he noted.

Mr Hashim Mohammed explained that while Category A schools have space for only 76,537 students, about 393,593 students qualify for admission, showing that there are far more students than available spaces.

“So you can see the discrepancy between the vacancy and the number of qualified students, simply because the government has not invested much in terms of infrastructure in the Category A schools,” he said.

The spokesman further explained that four regions in the country currently have no Category A Senior High Schools, and that the government is making plans to invest and improve infrastructure.

“The Minister never said they are going to downgrade Category A schools. He said the government needs to deploy more to improve infrastructure and upgrade some of the Category A schools so that they will be able to absorb more students, as well as elevate some of the Category B schools into Category A so that we can have a lot of Category A schools.”