UPGRADE OF SCHOOLS FROM CATEGORY A TO B & C.
Education investment is the best expenditure which brings about great advancement to a nation. It is expected that the double-track system in secondary schools will be eliminated by 2027 through expansion of education infrastructure. In the 2025 Budget Statement, the finance minister made commitments to fund the construction of one hundred (100) teachers’ accommodation for basic education tutors, and pay 20% extra allowances to teachers who will be posted to serve in rural schools.
We commend the government for increasing budgetary allocation for education by 14.9% in 2026 fiscal year.
While infrastructural improvement would expand access to education, it does not translate into attraction or quality. Traditional schools in Category A have earned their prestige on a long history of academic excellence, and a far-reaching network of influential people which naturally shapes public and parents’ perception on quality.
The government must be innovative and create new educational services that makes choosing certain Category B schools attractive to prospective students. The Accra STEM Academy is a good example of a specialised educational model because it does not try to compete with the 100-year-old reputation of some traditional schools, but sidesteps them to create a new form of prestige that disrupts the existing pathways of secondary education.
The school’s advantages are specific, practical, and consistent with education services in certain highly productive countries where students are equipped with the Fourth Industrial Revolution skillset.
The Global Futures Institute suggest that the government should focus on career specialist courses in ‘Category B’ schools to shift from the usual infrastructural upgrades that yields limited impact on quality.
We also recommend expanding secondary educational services and curricula to increase students’ choices and career opportunities in such schools. One practical pilot could involve developing the Mamfe Girls’ School in the Akropong district as a specialist school for robotics, making it the preferred choice for any aspiring female robotics engineer.
