… biggest-ever secondary education investment targets technical schools, the persistent double-track crisis
Ghana has locked in a US$300 million World Bank commitment to overhaul its secondary education system and announced plans to legislate a National Defence University into statute, two of the most consequential education announcements in years, as the current administration signals that human capital development sits at the top of its policy agenda.
Education Minister, Haruna Iddrisu made both disclosures during school visits in Accra alongside Paschal Donohoe, the World Bank Group’s Managing Director and Chief Knowledge Officer.
The delegation toured tye Manhean Basic School in Osu, one of more than 16,000 primary schools now covered under the IDA-funded Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP), before moving to the Armed Forces Senior High Technical School in Burma Camp, where the major announcements were made.
The US$300 million Secondary Education Transformation for Access, Relevance and Results for Jobs project (STARR-J) is the largest single World Bank investment in Ghana’s secondary education sector and nearly double the US$180 million the Bank initially signalled when Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson held discussions in Washington.
“I am happy to announce that the World Bank is dedicating 300 million US dollars to support a secondary education initiative,” Mr. Iddrisu said at the Armed Forces school. At least four major garrison schools will be among the direct beneficiaries, he added.
The money arrives at a critical time. Ghana’s free Senior High School policy, introduced in 2017, triggered a 60 percent enrolment surge that the country’s infrastructure could not absorb, forcing a double-track system that leaves students out of school for up to 12 weeks at a stretch. At its peak, the system affected 58 percent of secondary schools; it still covers 38 percent today. STARR-J is explicitly designed to dismantle it through new construction, rehabilitation and re-equipping of schools.
For Mr. Donohoe, STARR-J is the natural successor to GALOP, which has trained over 70,000 teachers and reached 3.1 million pupils, well above its 2.3 million target.
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“What is so important about the next phase of our partnership is how we want to ensure that as the youngest pupils receive the teaching and support they need, we can continue with them in their journey as they move into secondary school,” he said.
“To help them with the jobs they need and deserve and to allow them to make a bigger contribution to the economy of Ghana,” he added.
Beyond infrastructure, STARR-J will target the quality deficit in technical and vocational training. Mr. Iddrisu was direct about the current model’s failure.
“You cannot have somebody in a vocational school spending 90 percent theory and 10 percent practical. It is the desire of President Mahama that we move away from that. It should be 70 percent practical and 30 percent theory,” he explained.
Separately, Minister Iddrisu announced that a parliamentary bill to give the National Defence University statutory footing is in preparation, with GETFund financing already allocated.
“At the request of President Mahama, I would be laying a bill in Parliament to establish a National Defence University,” he said.
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“I am currently liaising with the Office of the Attorney General to put the legislation in place,” the Minister continued.
The NDU is not a new concept, a presidential charter was granted on December 19, 2024 under former President Akufo-Addo, and the constituent National College of Defence Studies graduated its second cohort in December 2025.
But it remains without a permanent campus and without the parliamentary mandate that governs other public universities under Ghana’s Education Regulatory Bodies Act.
The proposed legislation would close that gap, placing the NDU on the same statutory footing as the country’s civilian universities and cementing what would be one of only a handful of standalone military universities on the continent.
