Overview
Ghana, a country of 34.7 million people in 2024, boasts a tradition of international education dating back to the 1730s, when the first Ghanaians returned home from Europe with university degrees and served as role models, spreading the concept of formal
education.
Education beyond the primary level began with seminaries and teacher training institutions until 1876 when the first secondary school, Mfantsipim, was founded at Cape Coast, heralding an era of burgeoning demand, rarely satisfied by British colonial officials,
for higher education.
When Ghana became the first African colony to gain independence in 1957, the government introduced the policy of education for all, proclaiming education as the key to national development. Although the structure of Ghanaian education was modeled on the
British system, the concept of universal access and the enthusiasm of Ghanaians for education showed that the former colonial officials underestimated Ghanians' demand for education. The 1950s and 1960s can be considered the golden age of education
in Ghana as schools were built so fast they were nicknamed “mushroom schools.” The rapid expansion of educational access in the 1990s meant that high school graduation expanded from about 30,000 to today’s 450,000. At the upper echelons,
the high standard and world-class competitiveness of Ghanaian students remains very strong.
Education
Ghana’s educational system is a 6-3-3-4 structure, consisting of 6 years of primary school, 3 years of Junior High School, 3 years of Senior High School, and 4 years of university to the Bachelor's degree.
Private international secondary schools play a gradually increasing role in Ghana, with several dozen schools offering international curricula such as the Cambridge A-Levels, International Baccalaureate (ten schools), and U.S. high school.
Prior to the restructuring of its educational system, Ghana followed a British-based structure of O-levels and A-levels, gradually phased out between 1987 and 1996. The transition was completed in June, 1996, when the last class took
A-Level exams. The last O-Level exams were administered in June 1994, although remedial exams were offered through 1999. The first Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSSCE) was administered in 1993. In 2006,
the SSSCE was replaced by the West African Senior
School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), also awarded by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).
The old system of education was based on a 6-5-2-3 structure, consisting of 6 years of primary school, 5 years of secondary school to O-Levels, 2 further years of secondary school to A-Levels, and 3 years of university to the Bachelor's
degree. There was also a post-primary "middle school" that students might attend for up to 4 years before entering secondary school. Under the old system, there was a clear distinction between "post-secondary" and "tertiary" education. Students
who passed the requisite number of O-Level exams could be admitted to "post-secondary" institutions, such as teacher or nurses' training colleges, forestry school, surveyors' school, etc.; these institutions offered 2- and 3-year diplomas
specific to their training area. Ghanaian O-Levels, representing eleven years of education, were never equivalent to U.S. high school and did not qualify students to enter university either in Ghana or the United States. Students who completed
A-levels with the requisite grades had 13 years of education and were eligible to enter "tertiary" education, i.e., universities, often qualifying for advanced placement in the American system.
With the advent of the current system, the distinction between post-secondary and tertiary education was abolished, although this was not made official until late 2004 when the National Council on Tertiary Education embraced all diploma- and degree-granting
institutions under the tertiary label, thus opening the way for eligibility for transfer credit in the universities. Successful completion of the 12-year senior secondary/high school leads to admission to all tertiary education, in teacher/nurses’
training colleges, technical institutions, and colleges and universities.
The former National Accreditation Board and the National Council for Tertiary Education were merged into the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, GTEC, in 2020. This body is responsible for regulating the higher education sector, including accreditation
of public and private institutions and credential evaluation.
As of early 2024, GTEC lists 307 tertiary institutions, half of them public with 85% of the 635,000 students enrolled. The accreditation status of several institutions or academic programs is listed as “expired,” but in many cases the backlog
of accreditation renewals is responsible; check with GTEC for updates. Private tertiary education is rapidly developing in Ghana, meticulously regulated by GTEC. Over 65,000 undergraduates are now pursuing academic degrees or diplomas in private institutions.
Admission to Ghanaian universities is based solely on the WASSCE aggregate; cutoff points vary depending on the competitiveness of each major, and can be as high as aggregate 6-8 for medicine and electrical engineering. Each of the major public universities
publishes the cutoff points for each of their majors each year, and it can be helpful to look these up for reference points in evaluating applications.
Admissions Notes and Recommendations:
• Students who do not attend Senior High School and who do not take the WASSCE are not high school graduates and not eligible for university admission in Ghana, but U.S. admission committees often admit Ghanaian students during their final (‘senior’)
year before completion of WASSCE exams, the results of which would not be available until early fall.
• Ghana does not have a homeschool system, although some students who failed their first attempt at WASSCE and retook exams as private candidates may claim to have been homeschooled.
• Vocational/technical credentials including the General Business Certificate Examination (GBCE), Ghana Commercial Exams, Advanced Business Certificate Examination (ABCE), RSA, City & Guilds, and other technical exams are not equivalent to secondary
school and do not lead to tertiary admission.
• A Ghanaian application to U.S. colleges should include both the school transcript and WAEC WASSCE results, but admissions committees may admit without waiting for final WASSCE results if they are confident in the student’s readiness for college.
• Ghanaian transcripts can be inconsistent due to teacher absences, forgeries are not unknown, and students don’t cultivate a GPA as is the case in the U.S. If the student has completed the senior year, insist on receiving WAEC WASSCE results
and don’t base the admissions decision on the transcript alone.
• Images of WAEC certificates are available online. You should not ask students to send you their original documents, because students are given only one copy, and duplicates are not issued.
• Testing: All major standardized tests (SAT/ACT, GRE, GMAT, TOEFL) in Ghana require presentation of a passport as identification, making identity theft rare.
• The TOEFL should be waived for Ghanaians who adequately demonstrate English
proficiency by your institution's standards. TOEFL is recommended for students who either do not take or score below expectation on the SAT/GRE/GMAT, or whose grade on the WASSCE English Language exam is a C or lower. Bear in mind that in Ghana, English
is the sole official language, and the sole language of instruction. All teaching materials and classroom teaching are conducted in English.