The Ghana Education Service (GES) has extended the deadline for the ongoing SHS selection exercise for Junior High School (JHS) students to Wednesday (25 June 2025).
The extension was announced in a circular signed by the Director of the Schools and Instructions Division at the GES, Prince C. Agyemang-Duah.
According to the circular, the decision was taken to accommodate the recent inclusion of private Senior High Schools (SHSs) in the selection system.
“The extension has become necessary due to the inclusion of private Senior High Schools in the selection process, allowing candidates additional time to make well-informed choices,” the statement read.
The GES stressed that all existing guidelines and procedures for the school selection process remain unchanged.
Students have been encouraged to consult their teachers, parents, and guardians when choosing their preferred second-cycle institutions.
Regional Directors of Education have been tasked to disseminate the revised timeline to all Metro, Municipal, and District Directors of Education.
These officials, in turn, are expected to communicate the update to head teachers and final-year JHS students.
To aid the process, a supplementary register listing the newly added private SHSs has also been included with the directive.
The development forms part of ongoing efforts to broaden access and expand school placement options for students transitioning to senior high school through the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS).
However, the Ministry of Education has taken a significant step toward expanding equitable access to secondary education by selecting 25 private Senior High Schools (SHSs) to participate in a pilot phase of the Free SHS policy for the 2025–2026 academic year.
The move marks a bold shift in Ghana’s educational landscape, aiming to ease the burden on overpopulated public institutions and offer parents and students more choices under the Free SHS umbrella.
The 25 selected private schools are spread across all regions of Ghana, with some regions more prominently represented than others.
The Central Region tops the list with six selected institutions, followed closely by the Greater Accra Region with five.
The Ashanti and Eastern Regions each have three schools included in the pilot.
Other regions such as Western, Western North, Northern, Upper East, Upper West, Volta, Bono East, and Bono have one school each selected for the programme.
Among the institutions listed are Ideal College, Legon; Action Senior High/Technical School; City Business Senior High; Delcam SHS; and St. Andrews SHS, all in Greater Accra.
In the Eastern Region, the selected schools include Modern Senior High School in Kpong, King David Community College, and Somanya Secondary Technical School.
From the Central Region, notable schools include St. Luke SHS, St. Richards SHS, Mount Hebron College, Obama College, Samtet Oxford Senior High School, and Sammo SHS (New Site).
Western North is represented by Otoo Memorial SHS, while the Northern Region features Business College International.
In the northernmost parts of the country, Regentropfen Senior High School in the Upper East Region and Ideal College in Wa represent the Upper West Region.
The Ashanti Region has three schools on the list: Cosmos Senior High School, Joy Standard College, and Elite College, Kumasi.
In the Volta Region, Wallahs Academy SHS has been selected, while Mist Senior High School in Yeji represents Bono East, and Ken Hammer Senior High Technical stands for Bono Region.
