The Executive Director of Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), Kofi Asare, has called on the government to permanently remove F9 grades as a barrier to admission into senior high school (SHS).
According to him, every Ghanaian child who successfully completes basic education should have the right to progress to secondary education, regardless of their performance in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
His comments come amid the ongoing 2026 Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) exercise, under which about 55,000 candidates reportedly failed to qualify for placement, largely after obtaining an F9 in either core English Language or Mathematics.
F9 Waiver Must Be Embedded in Free SHS
Mr Asare said Eduwatch welcomes the government’s decision to allow candidates with F9 grades to proceed to SHS but argued that the measure should be formally incorporated into the Free Senior High School policy framework.
He said this would prevent future governments from reversing or changing the policy at their discretion.
“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.”
Mr Asare argued that completion of basic education should, in itself, constitute sufficient qualification for admission to secondary education.
“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.”
Deprived Schools Face Greater Challenges
The Eduwatch Executive Director maintained that denying students access to SHS because of poor BECE results would be unfair, particularly when government has a responsibility to ensure adequate teaching and learning conditions across the country.
He noted that pupils who obtain F9 grades are disproportionately concentrated in deprived parts of the country, including the five northern regions, Oti and Western North.
According to Mr Asare, factors such as teacher shortages, inadequate textbooks and insufficient classroom furniture can negatively affect students’ academic performance.
“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 Must Enter Secondary Education’
Mr Asare said Ghana should work towards an education system in which no child is denied secondary education because of their academic performance at the basic level.
“Every Ghanaian that completes basic school must enter secondary education regardless of their grades.”
He also welcomed the current approach of allowing candidates who obtained F9 grades to proceed to SHS, describing it as an important step towards achieving universal access to secondary education.
He, however, stressed that the policy should be made permanent and formally embedded in the Free SHS framework to ensure that access to secondary education does not depend on the policy preferences of individual governments.
