About 50,000 BECE candidates miss SHS placement after scoring grade 9 in Maths or English – Fenyi

“The original policy itself aimed at grade 9 in Math, English and Science—these three core subjects—that if you had grade 9 in any of them or all of them, then you would not be qualified for automatic posting,” Fenyi said.

Approximately 50,000 candidates who sat the 2026 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) did not receive Senior High School (SHS) placement because they scored grade 9 in Mathematics or English Language, or in both subjects.

The 50,000 non-placements aligns with data from the Computerised School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS), which reported that roughly 565,000 of the approximately 620,000 candidates who wrote the 2026 BECE qualified for placement, while those who failed either English or Mathematics were excluded regardless of their overall aggregate.