238,000 Students Abandoned, NPP Corners Mahama: Rescue Them Today, Not on Camera Tomorrow

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has issued a five-point ultimatum to the government, demanding immediate action to rescue over 238,000 stranded Ghanaian students whose educational futures hang in the balance.

The affected students comprise of 54,985 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates who were initially told they had not qualified for secondary school placement, and 183,233 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) leavers who completed secondary school without a credit in Core Mathematics meaning they would be unable to get access to most degree programmes and countless vocational opportunities.

The crisis began when the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSPS) informed 54,985 BECE candidates that they had not qualified for placement. Four days later, the government reversed course, announcing that 53,887 of them could return online for self-placement.

In a statement signed by Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Chairman of the NPP Policy Coordination Committee, the party argues that the government’s September 7th announcement demonstrates that the Ministry of Education has learned nothing from previous placement challenges.

“By the time 53,887 candidates log in, the schools and programmes they wanted will largely be gone,” the statement reads. “What will remain will be schools far from home, unwanted courses, and exorbitant transport or hostel bills that many families cannot pay.”

The NPP insists that Ghanaian parents and candidates will judge this government by one metric alone: “how many of the original 54,985 are sitting in a classroom, not how many were allowed to open a website.”

Government figures cited by the NPP show 859,828 vacancies available for 623,072 BECE candidates nationwide. Yet 313,283 candidates placed a Category A school as their first choice, while those schools collectively offer just 76,417 seats.

“After elaborately campaigning against the double-track system, what Ghanaians expected the NDC administration to do was to explore innovative ways to open up facilities in the schools that are being passed over, with teachers, laboratories, and better programmes, as the last NPP Government was doing,” the statement emphasises.

The NPP further points to 85 private schools already enrolled in the Free SHS programme that have the capacity to absorb stranded candidates—capacity the government has conspicuously failed to utilise after two years in office.

Academic Performance Declines

Beyond the placement crisis, the NPP has sounded the alarm on deteriorating academic performance under the current administration.

This year’s WASSCE results in both English Language and Core Mathematics have fallen below 2024 levels—the baseline year when the NDC took over. While Mathematics has partially recovered from last year’s crash, it has not returned to its starting point. English, meanwhile, has declined for two consecutive years.

The government had previously attributed poor results to stricter invigilation. But this year, with invigilation equally strict and even more examination cancellations recorded, three subjects actually improved.

“That explanation has run out,” the NPP asserts. “Results turn on teaching, learning time, materials, attendance, and support, not on one convenient factor raised when the news is bad and dropped when it is good.”

183,233 Students Locked Out

The NPP has also drawn attention to what it describes as the “other end of the system”—the 183,233 young people who have completed secondary school but lack the Core Mathematics credit essential for university admission, technical training, and formal employment.

“A weak certificate closes doors at exactly the moment a young person is trying to start out, whether the next step is a university, a workshop, or a job,” the statement laments.

The party notes that tools to address this crisis already exist: academic intervention programmes in every public senior high school, remedial programmes for candidates needing to resit, Free TVET across 186 institutions, a National Apprenticeship Policy, and the Ghana Jobs and Skills Project.

Yet, the NPP charges, “This Government inherited all of them. It is not using any of them at the scale these numbers demand.”

Five Demands, One Ultimatum

The NPP has presented the government with five concrete demands:

Place all 54,985 affected BECE candidates in schools and publish the final outcome so the nation can verify who actually secured a place.

Clarify which rule and pass mark were applied this year and when they were approved—insisting that parents are entitled to know the standard before their child sits an examination, not after.

Utilise the 85 private Free SHS schools and invest teachers and facilities into schools that consistently end up with empty seats.

Properly fund academic intervention and remediation programmes to ensure fewer students fall below required grades next year and performance returns to at least 2024 levels.

Publish region-by-region and trade-by-trade data on how many TVET, apprenticeship, and job training places are actually available for this year’s school leavers, and match those opportunities against the 183,233 who need them.

In a stinging conclusion, the NPP accused the Mahama administration of being reactive rather than proactive—moving only when problems reach the news cycle.

“The 54,985 need school places. The 183,233 need a second chance,” the statement declares. “A Government that only moves when a problem reaches the news is not running the education sector. The Education Sector appears rather to be running the Government.”

With over 200,000 Ghanaian children unable to wait for the government’s next sudden move, the NPP is calling for “proactive quick action to protect their future.”

As the political debate intensifies, parents across the country are watching closely—waiting to see whether this government will deliver classrooms, not just announcements.