Primetime Limited has launched the 2026 National Science and Maths Quiz (NSMQ), with 174 schools set to compete for the bragging rights at a climax scheduled for the University of Cape Coast.
The national championship returns to UCC for the third time, with 107 winners of the regional qualifiers, 26 seeded schools, five private schools (one seeded), and 36 top runners-up set to compete for honours and the GH₵80,000 top prize.
Academic competition
Speaking at the launch on behalf of the Minister of Education, the Director of Pre-Tertiary Education at the ministry, Nana Baffour Awuah, highlighted the NSMQ's decades-long role in shaping the country's academic culture.
"For 33 years, the NSMQ has remained Ghana's foremost academic competition, inspiring generations of young people to pursue excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics," he said.
The competition has grown from a modest schools' quiz into a national event that brings the country to a virtual standstill each contest night, as families, past students, and total strangers alike watch the nation's brightest students go head-to-head.
The Managing Director of Primetime Limited, Nana Akua A. Mensah-Bonsu, expressed the hope that an all-female school would win the competition for the first time in its more than three-decade history.
"I prophesy that Wesley Girls will win this year's competition," she said of her former school, despite the school not being seeded for the 2026 edition.
Girls' schools have repeatedly reached the semi-finals and final without ever lifting the trophy, and it sets up the challenge to girls’ schools as one of the storylines to watch as the competition unfolds on the road to the grand finale.
Debutants
Ten schools are making their first appearance at the National Championship this year.
They are Mansem SHS, Pentecost SHS, Bepong SHS, Namong SHS, Dabala SHS, Enyan Denkyira SHTS, T.I. AMASS (Wa), Jukwa SHTS, Nkawkaw SHS and Esaase Bontefufuo SHS.
Reaching the national championship for the first time is regarded within the competition as an achievement in itself, given the number of schools that contest and fall short at the regional qualifying stage.
Tamale Girls' SHS also returns to the national championship for the first time since 2018, ending an eight-year absence from the national stage.
Prizes
The winning school will receive GH¢80,000 sponsored by GES, with GH¢40,000 going to the school, GH¢20,000 to the contestants, and GH₵20,000 to the teachers.
The first runner-up school will take home GH¢64,000 – GH¢30,000 to the school, GH¢17,000 to the contestants and another GH₵17,000 to the teachers.
The second runner-up school will receive GH¢50,000, out of which GH¢20,000 will go to the school, GH¢15,000 to the contestants and another GH¢15,000 to the teachers.
Six semi-finalists who do not progress to the finals will each receive GH¢15,000 sponsored by GES, which will be shared equally among the school, contestants and teachers.
20 Years of service
The NSMQ Quizmistress, Professor Elsie Effah Kaufmann, was specially honoured at the launch for 20 years of service to the competition, spanning 2006 to 2026.
Ms Mensah Bonsu and the Founder and Chairman of Primetime Limited, Dr Kwaku Mensah-Bonsu, presented Prof. Kaufmann with a bouquet in recognition of two decades in the quizmistress's chair, a role she has handled as one of the most recognisable faces of the competition, known to generations of contestants for the calm, exacting authority with which she has presided over the quiz board.
