What should we really be thinking about in Ghana’s education system in 2026?

Why we must think about foundational learning well beyond the early grades and basic schools?
By Christin McConnell - Chief of Education
Ghana has rightly elevated foundational learning, basic literacy, numeracy, and writing as a national priority. It anchors Ghana’s Partnership Compact and has featured prominently in education discourse under the new administration in 2025. But Ghana’s historical focus on foundational learning risks overlooking a harder truth: the need for these fundamental skills does not end when a child leaves primary school.

Recent results from Ghana’s Differentiated Learning Plus (DL+) programme show what is possible when targeted instruction, structured pedagogy, and play-based learning are implemented at scale in primary schools. As DL+ prepares for nationwide rollout in all public primary schools, it offers a powerful model for strengthening early foundations. Yet many children and youth have already progressed through large parts of the education system without these skills and are now largely invisible in existing reform efforts.

During my recent visits to secondary schools in rural districts, principals described a quiet but growing crisis. In one SHS, the principal estimated that nearly half of incoming students could not read. In another senior technical school, leadership reported that most new students struggled with basic literacy. Teachers are expected to respond, but few at this level have been trained to teach foundational skills, and stigma often prevents students from seeking help. This challenge is now gaining national attention, as weak foundational skills are increasingly cited as a driver of poor West African Senior School Certificate Examination WASSCE outcomes.

Looking ahead to 2026, a key priority must be building stronger evidence on the scale of this challenge and exploring practical solutions drawing on Ghana-specific materials from DL+, complementary basic education, and emerging technologies to support remedial learning at Junior High School, Senior High School, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), as well as for out-of-school youth.

Christopher Nkrumah, education officer, UNICEF Ghana, observes a Complementary Basic Education(CBE) program class in the Bono East region, Ghana.
UNICEF/Acquah/2025 Christopher Nkrumah, Education Specialist, UNICEF Ghana, observes a Complementary Basic Education(CBE) program class in the Bono East region, Ghana.
Invisible Children, Uncertain Numbers: Are all out-of-school children visible?
By Christopher Nkrumah - Education Specialist
In late 2025, a field visit to the Bono East and Ashanti Regions took me into conversations with stakeholders implementing Ghana’s Complementary Basic Education (CBE) Programme—a nine-month accelerated literacy intervention for out-of-school children aged 8–14. What I observed was inspiring. What I heard, however, was deeply unsettling.

When CBE works well, it is impactful. In a recent UNICEF-supported programme, 97 percent of learners completed the course, and 80 percent successfully transitioned back into formal education. Even more promising, CBE is undergoing a curriculum reform to strengthen phonics-based instruction in local languages to further accelerate literacy gains.

It led me to an uncomfortable question: if we know what works, why is it still so hard to plan at scale?

The answer lies in uncertainty: how many out-of-school children are there, and where are