The Ministry of Education has announced that the World Bank has approved a $300 million financing package to support the government’s efforts to end the double-track secondary school system.
The Education Ministry revealed that the funding will support the Transformative Secondary Education for Access, Results, and Relevance for Jobs (STARR-J) project.
According to the Education Ministry, the (STARR-J) project is designed to expand access to secondary education, improve quality, and address infrastructure gaps linked to the Free Senior High School policy.
In a statement, the Ministry of Education stated, “The Ministry of Education is pleased to announce that the Board of the World Bank has approved a financing package of US$300 million to support the Government of Ghana in implementing the Transformative Secondary Education for Access, Results and Relevance for Jobs (STARR-J) Project.
The STARR-J Project represents a major intervention aimed at strengthening Ghana’s secondary education system by expanding access, improving quality and relevance, and addressing critical infrastructure deficits arising from the expansion of Free Senior High School education.
A key objective of the project is to support the Government’s commitment to ending the double-track system in Senior High Schools across the country. Through targeted investments in educational infrastructure, improved learning conditions, and enhanced system efficiency, the Government expects that by 2027, no secondary school in Ghana will be operating under the double-track system.
Speaking on the significance of the approval, the Minister for Education, Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, stated:
“This project is a major investment in Ghana’s growing youthful population and a strategic contribution to the country’s long-term human capital development and global competitiveness. It will help expand learning opportunities, improve school conditions, better align secondary education with the skills demanded by the labour market, and, more importantly, respond to the infrastructure deficit associated with expanded access to Free Secondary Education.”
The Ministry of Education expresses its appreciation to the World Bank Country Director, Robert Taliercio O’Brien, the World Bank Education team, and the Ministry of Finance, led by Dr Cassiel Ato Forson, for their continued support towards the transformation of Ghana’s Education Sector.
The STARR-J Project reaffirms the Government’s commitment to ensuring equitable access to quality secondary education and equipping Ghanaian students with the knowledge and skills required to thrive in an increasingly competitive global economy’.
It will be recalled that President John Dramani Mahama has reiterated his government’s commitment to end the SHS double-track system.
According to President John Mahama, a hundred SHS schools have already reverted to single-track.
Mahama highlighted that his government is firmly committed to abolishing the double-track system entirely through a focused two-year intervention, which will be implemented this year and next year, and will eventually end the double-track system.
Speaking at the 54th National Delegates Conference of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) in Accra on Monday, January 5, President Mahama stated, “In 2025 alone, the Free SHS program received 3.5 billion Ghana cedis under the GETFund. This has been the highest allocation since its inception, and this has strengthened logistics, feeding, and learning conditions in our secondary schools”.
He added, “I’m pleased to announce that about 100 double-track schools have already reverted to single-track. And the government remains firmly committed to abolishing the double-track system entirely through a focused two-year intervention, which we call the Ghana Secondary Learning Improvement Project — GSLIP.
This project will improve access and quality and restore full-time schooling for all students. So this year, next year are the implementation. By the time we finish implementing, there’ll be no secondary school implementing double-track in this country.”
See the statement below:
