Education is too deeply connected to our collective future, prosperity, safety and wellbeing to be reduced to political rhetoric.
Policymakers across the political divide have a responsibility to ensure that teaching and learning improve, access is widened and every child has a genuine opportunity to develop their potential.
The country cannot afford cycles of political argument that leave the fundamental problems in the education system unresolved.
Recent developments should prompt sober reflection.
The latest BECE results point to a decline in the overall pass rate from about 97 per cent in 2025 to 91 per cent in 2026.
A decline of that magnitude requires careful examination of what is happening at the basic education level and what policy interventions are needed to reverse the trend.
According to the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS), about 17 per cent of the 620,000 candidates who sat the examination obtained aggregates between 6 and 18, placing them within the range generally associated with competition for Category A schools.
This makes the performance of children at the basic level an issue that deserves attention beyond the annual debate over school placement.
We must certainly improve the BECE pass rate.
But beyond that, Ghana needs to strengthen the entire educational journey, from kindergarten through basic and secondary education, so that children acquire the literacy, numeracy, critical-thinking and other foundational skills required to progress.
The evidence on foundational learning is particularly concerning.
UNICEF estimates that only about 20 per cent of Ghanaian children aged 7 to 14 possess basic reading skills, while a large majority do not acquire the literacy and numeracy competencies expected by the end of primary education.
The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment’s 2024 National Standard Test similarly found significant weaknesses in reading proficiency among primary four pupils, with about 20 per cent demonstrating advanced proficiency and roughly half performing below the basic level.
These figures should matter more to policymakers than the annual political arguments around examination results.
A child who cannot read and understand what they read is already at a significant disadvantage in learning other subjects. Improving foundational literacy and numeracy must, therefore, be treated as a national priority.
It is encouraging that the National Standard Test, introduced in 2022, provides a mechanism for measuring learning outcomes at the basic level.
The next step is to use that evidence more deliberately to identify weaknesses, target interventions and track whether those interventions are working.
At the same time, attention must be paid to children who leave school before completing basic education, particularly girls and children from vulnerable households.
Keeping children in school is fundamental to achieving equity.
Free SHS must be accessible to all, especially the vulnerable and poor.
Funding the policy adequately is, therefore, not simply a question of maintaining the programme; it is necessary to ensure that the poorest households can benefit from it in practice, by reducing and eliminating hidden costs.
This requires a sustained commitment to financing infrastructure, teaching and learning materials, teacher development and the wider conditions under which schools operate.
The cost of Free SHS should be properly identified and protected within the national budget so that funding pressures do not continually undermine the quality and accessibility of the programme.
The current government’s plans to end the double-track system by 2027 and expand capacity, including through additional Category A schools, should consequently be pursued within the stated timelines.
These are not merely political promises.
They are responses to practical challenges affecting access, capacity and the quality of secondary education.
Ghana’s education challenge is too important to be trapped in the politics of who introduced a policy, who inherited it or who deserves credit for it.
Governments will change, but the children passing through the education system remain the country’s future workforce, professionals, entrepreneurs, public servants and leaders.
The task, therefore, is straightforward even if it is not easy.
Protect what has expanded access, fix what is not working, fund what needs funding and focus relentlessly on whether children are actually learning.
Education should be treated as a foremost national development project, not another arena for partisan contest.
The writer is a lawyer, development professional.
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