World Bank Approves US$300 M STARR-J Project for Sec. Sch.

The Ministry of Education has confirmed that the World Bank has approved the US$300 million STARR-J Project to Support Ghana’s transition from Double-Track Secondary Education. The government of Ghana is taking bold steps in the second cycle schools aimed at bringing to an end the double-track system introduced by the Nana Akufo-Addo-led government in the 2017-2018 academic year.

I am a press release the Ministry of Education announced that the Board of the World Bank approved a US$300 million financing package to support the Government of Ghana in implementing the Transformative Secondary Education for Access, Results and Relevance for Jobs (STARR-J) Project.

According to the Ministry fo Education, the STARR-J Project is a major intervention designed to strengthen Ghana’s secondary education system by improving quality and relevance, expanding access, and addressing infrastructure deficits from the expansion of Free Senior High School education.

A key objective is to support the Government’s commitment to end the double-track system in Senior High Schools; the Government expects that no secondary school in Ghana will operate under this system by 2027. Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, the Minister for Education, stated that this project is a significant investment in Ghana’s youthful population and its long-term human capital development and global competitiveness.

He added that it will help expand learning opportunities, improve school conditions, better align secondary education with labor market demands, and address infrastructure deficits associated with expanded access to Free Secondary Education.

The Ministry expressed appreciation to 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 of the transformation of Ghana’s education sector.

The project reaffirms the government’s commitment to ensuring equitable access to quality secondary education and equipping students with the skills required to thrive in a competitive global economy.

Wisdom K.E Hammond

Ghanaeducation.org is founded by Wisdom Kojo Eli Hammond, a distinguished Ghanaian Edu-Tech Entrepreneur, AI Solutions Developer, and Product Architect with over 25 years of cross-disciplinary experience in education, finance, and digital media. Wisdom is the visionary force behind SkulManager, Ghana’s premier school management ecosystem, and the Lead Consultant at Education-News Consult.
A self-taught innovator, professional Web Designer, and regular columnist on GhanaWeb, Wisdom engineered SkulManager.com as the only platform strictly tailored to the GES curriculum. His technical leadership has redefined educational assessment through a hybrid marking ecosystem, pioneering the BECE and WASSCE Home Mock services—a unique fusion of WAEC-trained human examiners and advanced AI marking engines operational since 2022.