Category A, B and C senior high schools in Ghana: what the categories mean and where the list is

What the categories do

When a Junior High School candidate fills in the school selection form, they pick eight schools in order of preference, five as boarding and three as day. The categories decide how many of those eight can come from the most sought-after schools. The Ministry’s 2026 guidelines set it out like this:

The guidelines also say a school is filled by merit, so a Category A school takes the best aggregates among the candidates who chose it, and that 30% of Category A places are set aside for public JHS candidates. They do not define a Category A school by its age, results or facilities, and we will not invent a definition.

Source: Ministry of Education, 2026.

The official counts, and what they show

The Ghana News Agency reported these figures from the Ministry of Education after the 2026 placement. They are the clearest official picture of the categories we have found.

Source: Ministry of Education, 2026.

The ten most chosen schools in the 2025 cycle

The 2026 guidelines print this table. It shows how many candidates made each school their first choice and how many places the school declared. The guidelines do not say what category each school is in.

Source: Ministry of Education, 2026.

Why there is no list of schools here

There is no official public list of schools by category on the CSSPS portal, in the Ministry of Education's 2026 guidelines or on the GES website, and our register does not record a category for any school. So we do not name any school as Category A, B or C. Your junior high head teacher and district education office work from the selection form and can tell you.

Lists of Category A, B and C schools circulate on blogs and in video captions. We checked and could not trace them to the Ministry or GES, and categories can change between years. A parent who builds a school selection on a wrong list loses a choice that cannot be changed after the form is submitted. If an official list is published, we will link to it and add the counts.

What we can show is every senior high school on the register, by region, with ownership, district and where the record came from. Use it to find the schools near you, then check the category with your JHS head teacher.

Counted from the school register.

Questions about Category A, B and C schools

What are category B schools in Ghana?

Category B is one of the tiers the school selection guidelines use to limit your choices. In the 2026 guidelines a candidate may pick no more than three Category B schools, and the guidelines allow two as boarding and one as day. The guidelines do not list which schools are Category B. There is no official public list that we could find, so we cannot say which category any named school is in. Your junior high head teacher or district education office can tell you from the selection form.

Which school is category B in Ghana?

There is no official public list that we could find, so we cannot say which category any named school is in. Your junior high head teacher or district education office can tell you from the selection form.

Which schools are category A?

There is no official public list that we could find, so we cannot say which category any named school is in. Your junior high head teacher or district education office can tell you from the selection form. What the guidelines do say is that a candidate cannot choose more than two Category A schools, and that 30% of the places in Category A schools are reserved for candidates from public junior high schools.

Which are the shs in category A?

There is no official public list that we could find, so we cannot say which category any named school is in. Your junior high head teacher or district education office can tell you from the selection form.

Which schools are in category A in Ashanti region?

There is no official public list that we could find, so we cannot say which category any named school is in. Your junior high head teacher or district education office can tell you from the selection form. Our register lists the senior high schools in the Ashanti Region without categories, and the list is linked below.

What are the top 20 A schools in Ghana?

We do not rank schools by category. The Ministry's 2026 guidelines do print the ten schools most often chosen as a first choice in the 2025 cycle, with the places each declared, and we show that table above. It does not say which of them are Category A.

Which shs are in category C?

There is no official public list that we could find, so we cannot say which category any named school is in. Your junior high head teacher or district education office can tell you from the selection form.

Which schools are in category C?

There is no official public list that we could find, so we cannot say which category any named school is in. Your junior high head teacher or district education office can tell you from the selection form.

Which schools are in category D in Ghana?

The 2026 selection guidelines name Categories A, B and C only. Earlier guidelines did use a Category D: the Ghana News Agency's report on the 2021 guidelines describes it as the day school option for schools in the candidate's catchment area. There is no current official Category D list.

What are the different categories of SHS schools in Ghana?

The 2026 guidelines use Category A, Category B and Category C, plus Pilot Private Senior High Schools, which candidates may pick as Category B or C day schools, and TVET institutes, which count within Categories A, B and C. Earlier guidelines also had a Category D for day schools.

Is Ghana National College a category A or B school?

There is no official public list that we could find, so we cannot say which category any named school is in. Your junior high head teacher or district education office can tell you from the selection form.

Is Accra Stem Academy a category B school?

There is no official public list that we could find, so we cannot say which category any named school is in. Your junior high head teacher or district education office can tell you from the selection form.

What category is St. Monica's SHS in?

There is no official public list that we could find, so we cannot say which category any named school is in. Your junior high head teacher or district education office can tell you from the selection form.

What are the top 10 Category B schools in Accra?

We do not publish rankings by category, because there is no official list to rank from. Our register lists every senior high school in the Greater Accra Region with its district, ownership and source, and you can open each school's page.

What are the top 20 Category B schools in Kumasi?

The same applies. Kumasi sits in the Ashanti Region, and the region's senior high schools are listed below without categories.

What makes a school a category A?

The guidelines we read do not define the categories by any criteria. They use them as selection limits. What the official 2026 figures show is that Category A schools are by far the most oversubscribed: 313,283 candidates chose a Category A school as their first choice, against 76,417 declared Category A vacancies.

Which schools are in Category A in Ghana?

We could not find an official public list, so we do not name schools as Category A. The guidelines set the limits on how many you can choose from each category. Your junior high head teacher has the selection form that shows each school's category.

What are Category B schools in Ghana?

Category B is one of three tiers used to limit your choices. Under the 2026 guidelines you may choose no more than three Category B schools, and two may be boarding with one day.

What are Category C schools?

Category C schools make up the largest group, with 468,652 places in 2026. A candidate may choose all eight schools from Category C, with five boarding and three day choices.

How many Category A schools can I choose?

No more than two.

Is there a Category D?

The 2026 selection guidelines we read set limits for Categories A, B and C only. Some websites mention a Category D. We could not confirm a Category D in the guidelines, so we do not use it.

What makes a school Category A?

The guidelines do not set out the criteria in the document we read. We will not guess at them.

Which region has the most Category A schools?

We cannot say, because there is no official public list. We can say which region has the most senior high schools on the register: see the table above.

Do Category A schools have better WASSCE results?

We hold no school-level WASSCE results, so we cannot say.