Ghana’s Free Senior High School (Free SHS) programme has significantly expanded access to secondary education, but a new review by the Centre for Policy Scrutiny (CPS) says the policy continues to leave families with substantial education-related expenses.
The report, “Improved Access, Quality Questioned: A Report on 9 Years of Ghana’s Free Senior High School (SHS) Policy,” acknowledges that government’s absorption of tuition, boarding, feeding and core learning materials has provided considerable financial relief to households. However, it identifies prospectus requirements and other hidden costs as continuing burdens on parents and guardians.
The review also raises concerns about educational quality. It says the double-track system, introduced to accommodate the surge in enrolment, has reduced instructional contact time in some schools, resulting in some parents paying for extra classes. Category C and D schools, it adds, face overcrowded classrooms and dining halls, shortages of food and furniture, deteriorating dormitories and delays in receiving textbooks and other learning materials.
The researchers are therefore calling for government to clearly define what “free” means under the policy and specify the expenses it should cover. There is an uncomfortable question that government must answer: How free is Free SHS when parents continue to spend significant amounts of money to keep their children in school?
There is no question that the Free SHS policy has transformed access to secondary education. By removing major costs associated with public Senior High School, the policy has enabled many young Ghanaians to continue their education without their parents having to shoulder the full cost of tuition, boarding and feeding.
That achievement must not be undermined. But neither should government hide behind it. The concerns raised by the Centre for Policy Scrutiny are important because they expose the difference between free education on paper and affordable education in practice.
If parents are still required to purchase extensive prospectus items and other necessities, then government needs to explain precisely what Free SHS covers. The public should not have to navigate a confusing system in which education is described as free, while families are confronted with substantial bills at the beginning of the academic year.
This is particularly important for poorer households, for whom even seemingly modest expenses can become a serious financial burden.
The problem is not entirely new. Previous research has also documented significant parental expenditure under Free SHS. The persistence of the problem should, therefore, prompt government to review the policy’s definition of “free”, rather than dismiss parents’ complaints as isolated cases.
But affordability is only one side of the debate. Free SHS must not become a choice between access and quality.
A University of Ghana-led peer-reviewed study found significant declines in some education-quality and academic-performance outcomes following implementation of the Free SHS and double-track system.
Students in double-track schools performed worse in core subjects than those in non-double-track schools, while researchers identified infrastructure deficits, inadequate contact hours, shortages of teaching materials and other implementation challenges.
Government itself now recognises the infrastructure challenge. The 2026 Budget provides GH¢4.2 billion for Free Secondary Education and GH¢1.1 billion to end the double-track system and improve secondary education quality.
This is welcome, but the money must translate into tangible improvements. The government has pledged to eliminate double-track by 2027 and is investing GH¢3 billion under the STAR-J project to expand secondary-school infrastructure, address congestion and improve quality.
These investments should be judged not merely by the number of projects completed, but by whether students actually have adequate classrooms, dormitories, furniture, textbooks, laboratories, teachers and instructional time.
The debate, therefore, should not be Free SHS versus no Free SHS. That is a false choice. The real debate is about making Free SHS genuinely accessible, financially meaningful and academically worthwhile.
Government should preserve the policy while eliminating unnecessary charges, clearly publishing what the state covers and strengthening oversight of school-level expenses. At the same time, it must close the quality gap between better-resourced schools and those struggling with overcrowding and inadequate facilities.
Free SHS was introduced on the principle that a child’s future should not be determined by the depth of his or her parents’ pockets. That principle remains sound.
But it would be equally troubling if poor families could get their children into secondary school only to discover that they must continue paying heavily for basic requirements—or that their children receive a poorer-quality education because they attend an under-resourced school.
Free SHS must therefore be more than a name. It must mean that essential education is genuinely affordable for families, while every child receives the quality of education needed to build a productive future. Ghana should keep Free SHS.
But government must now make “free” mean free and make the education good enough to justify the investment.
