The Ghana Education Service (GES) has released funds to all Senior High Schools (SHS) and Senior High Technical Schools (SHTS) across the country to cover practical examination fees for the 2026 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), ahead of an exam season in which more than 500,000 candidates are expected to sit the papers.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, and signed by Daniel Fenyi, Head of Public Relations at GES, the Service confirmed that the money had been disbursed to give schools nationwide what they need to run the practical components of the exam without delay or disruption.
“This payment ensures that all practical examinations scheduled for the 2026 WASSCE are fully supported, including the provision of the required materials and other essential resources,” the GES statement said.
What the funding covers
The disbursement is meant to settle outstanding practical examination fees owed on behalf of Form Three candidates in public and private second-cycle institutions. It also covers the materials and logistics schools need to conduct practicals in subjects such as the sciences, Home Economics, Visual Arts and technical and vocational subjects, where candidates are assessed on hands-on skills rather than written answers alone.
GES has not publicly disclosed the exact cedi figure released for this year’s exercise. For context, a similar disbursement covering the 2025 WASSCE practicals, announced by the Service last year, amounted to GH¢15,849,920.
Officials say the intention behind releasing the funds ahead of the practical sessions is to spare parents and guardians from having to pay these fees out of pocket, and to let students concentrate on preparing for their exams instead of worrying about school-level levies.
Exam calendar and practicals already underway
Practical and project-based assessments in subjects such as Visual Arts and Home Economics had already begun in schools ahead of the main WASSCE window, GES said, with the wider examination formally opening on Wednesday, May 13, 2026, starting with the Oral English paper.
This year’s WASSCE also marks Ghana’s return to the traditional West African regional examination calendar, sitting the exam alongside Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia in the May-to-June window. Ghana had run its own separate timetable in recent years because of scheduling disruptions linked to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Scale of this year’s WASSCE
Registration figures reported closer to the start of the exam put the total number of candidates for the 2026 WASSCE at 509,862, made up of 225,274 male and 284,588 female candidates. Earlier in the registration period, some outlets had reported a lower running total of 473,658 candidates; the gap likely reflects registrations that were still being finalised at the time, including private candidates, before the exam opened.
Regional data shared alongside the final figures show Ashanti Region with the highest number of candidates at 127,702, followed by the Eastern Region with 70,099 and the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo cluster with 67,739. Other regions recorded lower but still substantial numbers, including Central (61,303), Greater Accra (48,099), Volta (41,622), the Oti and Western North cluster (35,620), the Northern zone (33,155), Upper East (15,192) and Upper West (9,249).
Candidates are drawn from more than a thousand public and private second-cycle schools nationwide, underscoring just how far-reaching an exercise the WASSCE practicals funding is meant to support.
Accountability and monitoring
GES has directed regional, district and school-level authorities to apply the released funds strictly to their intended purpose. The Service said it would monitor how the money is used at the school level to ensure compliance and maintain the standard of practical examination administration nationwide.
Heads of institutions have effectively been put on notice that any diversion of the funds from covering practical fees and materials will be checked against GES’s own monitoring mechanisms.
For families across the country, the release of the funds removes one more item from an already long list of costs tied to the WASSCE season, at a time when over half a million candidates and their schools are gearing up for one of the most consequential examinations in Ghana’s education calendar.