The Executive Director of Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), Kofi Asare, has called on the government to permanently scrap the use of F9 grades as a barrier to admission into senior high school (SHS).

According to him, every Ghanaian child who completes basic education should have the right to progress to secondary education regardless of their BECE results.

His comments come amid the ongoing 2026 Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) exercise, where 55,000 candidates did not qualify for placement primarily because they obtained a Grade 9 in either core English Language or Mathematics.

Mr Asare said while Eduwatch welcomes the government’s decision to allow students who obtain F9 grades to proceed to SHS, the policy should be formally embedded in the Free SHS framework to prevent changes from being made at the discretion of successive governments.

“We have recommended that government should amend or review the Free Senior High School policy document. The policy document must have enshrined in it the requirement to qualify for secondary education. We must waive that F9 thing there.

“There is no qualification to enter secondary education once one completes basic education, so that we don’t be going back and forth year by year, so that it becomes at the discretion of a politician that this year F9 will go, next year F9 will not go.”

Mr Asare maintained that denying students access to SHS because of poor BECE grades would be unfair, particularly because government has a responsibility to provide adequate teaching and learning conditions.

He noted that students who record F9 grades are disproportionately found in deprived areas, including the five northern regions, Oti and Western North.

According to him, challenges such as teacher shortages, inadequate textbooks and lack of basic furniture in some schools can contribute to poor academic outcomes.

“Until government provides adequate facilities across urban, peri-urban and deprived areas, you cannot punish pupils for having F9 in Maths and deny them an opportunity to enter Free Senior High School.”

“Every Ghanaian that completes basic school must enter secondary education regardless of their grades.”

He said Ghana should aspire to a system where no child is denied secondary education because of academic performance at the basic level.

Mr Asare also welcomed the current approach of allowing students who may have obtained F9 grades to proceed to SHS, describing it as a step towards ensuring universal access.

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Some teachers from the 2022 cohort of Colleges of Education graduates have staged a protest over 14 months of unpaid salaries, demanding urgent action from the government.

The teachers say they have been waiting for their salaries since 2025 despite several engagements with relevant stakeholders, including the Ministry of Education, as well as a previous protest over the issue.

According to the group, the prolonged delay has placed significant financial strain on affected teachers, many of whom have accumulated debts while struggling to meet their basic needs.

The teachers are also demanding the issuance of staff identification cards to affected members who are yet to receive them.

As part of the protest, the group intends to petition the Ministry of Finance, the Jubilee House, the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to intervene and resolve the matter.

Speaking to Citi News, one of the affected teachers said the government’s failure to pay them had left many struggling to meet basic household expenses.

“The government intentionally paid some teachers and left some teachers. For the past 14 months, we have not been paid; we have accumulated debt upon debt. For some of us, paying electricity bills has become a problem; paying water bills has become a problem.

“In fact, we can’t even handle basic things; we can’t even buy boxer shorts for ourselves because we have accumulated so much debt to the extent that whenever we are paid our one-month salaries, our debtors come after us, taking our money,” he said.

The teachers are therefore calling on the government to settle all outstanding salaries and address the administrative challenges affecting their employment, including the delay in issuing staff identification cards.

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The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) has attributed the decline in English Language performance in the 2026 WASSCE to poor reading habits, grammatical weaknesses and the growing use of informal language on social media by candidates.

Head of Public Affairs at WAEC, John Kapi, said although candidates generally performed better this year than in 2025, English Language recorded a decline.

“The results have been an improvement on the previous year’s performance except for English Language, which saw a decline,” he said in an interview with Citi News.

The proportion of candidates obtaining A1 to C6 in English fell from 73.11 per cent in 2023 to 69.52 per cent in 2024, 69 per cent in 2025 and 62.40 per cent in 2026.

Mr. Kapi said the Chief Examiner’s report identified persistent weaknesses in concord, spelling, grammar, comprehension and summary writing.

He also expressed concern about declining reading habits, noting that some candidates struggled to answer questions based on prescribed literary texts. WAEC is additionally worried about informal language creeping into examination scripts.

“They might only use the contracted forms as if they were the standard, and that is one area that is worrying,” Kapi said.

In Core Mathematics, however, WAEC recorded an improvement compared with 2025. John Kapi said candidates demonstrated strengths in arithmetic progression, coordinate geometry and business mathematics, although weaknesses remained in translating word problems into mathematical statements and other areas.

In 2026, 60.75 per cent of candidates obtained A1 to C6 in Core Mathematics, while English recorded 62.40 per cent.

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