Over 6,000 classrooms within the various Senior High Schools in Ghana are in deplorable states as they need repairs.

Whereas about 1,984 SHS classrooms need major repair works, 4,079 require minor touches.
Ghana as at 2015 had 863 Senior High School. Of the number 562 are run by government while the remaining 301 are privately owned.

This was contained in a Ministry of Education report dubbed: Report on basic statistics and planning parameters for Senior High Schools in Ghana for the 2014/2015 academic year.


According to the report, Ghana could boast of 18,532 permanent classrooms which represented a 5.8% increase as compared to the figure of 2013/2014 academic year which was 17,523.

“…there are 18,532 permanent classrooms in the schools, and this represents an increase of 5.8% over the 2013/2014 figure of 17,523. Out of the 18,532 permanent classrooms, 1,984 classrooms need major repairs, and this constitutes a reduction of 6.1% when compared to the previous year’s figure of 2,114. Again, of the total number of permanent classrooms, 4,079 of them need minor repairs, and this represents a marginal increase of 0.6% over the previous year’s figure of 4,053,” the report added.

The report also noted that generally, Ashanti Region “has the highest number of classrooms needing major repairs (322) while the Upper East Region has the lowest number (75).”

“…The percentage of permanent classrooms in Senior High Schools needing major repairs is 10.7%, representing a drop of 3.8% when related to the 2013/2014 figure. The percentage of permanent classrooms in Senior High Schools needing minor repairs is 22.0%, showing a drop of 4.8% over the previous year’s figure of 23.1%.”

The report also showed that comparing the conditions of facilities by regional figures, SHS classrooms in the Volta Region “are in the worst state of disrepair with 16.1% of permanent classrooms needing major repairs while the Ashanti Region has the lowest figure (8.0%).”

Free SHS policy & rush for School placements
This information comes at a time when there is a rush for SHS placements following the rolling out of government’s free SHS policy.

The Ghana Education Service (GES), last week Friday announced the posting of over 400,000 BECE candidates to various Senior High Schools in the country.

Following the breakdown of the website for the computerised placement system, government subsequently introduced a new website to facilitate the process and extended a 48-hour deadline for the registration to Thursday, September 7, 2017.