Only 30,000 Boarding Places Available For Over 400,000 Grade Seven Pupils

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education says about 30,000 Form One boarding school places are available for the 2026 academic year.

This comes against a much greater demand. In 2025, about 418,000 candidates sat for the Grade Seven public examinations and are expected to start Form One next month.

Every year, around 100,000 learners apply for Form One boarding places at public and private schools through the Electronic Ministry Application Platform (EMAP) — an online system used by Grade Seven pupils to apply for boarding schools.

Speaking to The Herald, the ministry’s communications and advocacy director, Taungana Ndoro, said:

“EMAP is currently open for applications for Form 1 placements for the upcoming academic year.

“We can only know the number that have taken up vacancies, and this hovers around 30,000; however, we have not yet established how many learners have registered on the platform so far.

“As of now, we have received a significant number of applications, although exact figures are still being compiled. We will provide updated statistics shortly.”

Ndoro said the EMAP system has been very effective because it removes human interference and cuts out opportunities for corruption.

The platform automatically matches pupils’ Grade Seven results with each school’s cut-off points and available places.

He added that there are currently no plans to introduce EMAP for A-Level enrolment, since the main pressure for boarding school places is at Form One, not Lower Sixth.

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