What we don't have
Most archives keep this list private. Everything below is missing, incomplete or contradictory. Each item comes off the page when somebody fills it, and not before.
The open list
1 missing, 10 partial, 1 disputed.
Contestant names
The 2026 championship filled about 117 buzzer seats across 13 recorded contests. 10 students are named against a contest, and all but one come from three videos the organisers put on their own channel the morning of the final. The press named nobody: Pulse Ghana ran an article headlined "Meet the contestants" that names none, and MyJoyOnline's "profiles of the three grand finalists" profiles the three schools. Before 2026, not one contest record names anybody. The organisers' interview series names 16 more people across 9 editions from 1994 to 2020, which is where they now sit. That still leaves 21 contested editions with nobody named in any source located so far.
Which contest each named person played
The interview series gives a name, a school and an edition, and never a round. So the 16 people on the people page are attached to an edition rather than to a contest, including for 5 of those editions where this archive does hold the final. One episode names a team and not its members. Anybody who remembers a line-up can close this.
Scores before 2026
13 editions from 2006 to 2025 have their final here, and 2022 has its whole season, 35 contests from the preliminary stage to the night itself. Not one of those 47 contests carries a score. The organisers' video titles name the schools and never the numbers, so every one of them reads score not recorded, and will until somebody watches a tape or finds a report. The remaining 17 contested editions still have nothing but a champion.
Regional and zonal rounds
The official site covers regionals for 2019 to 2025 only. About 25 years of regional and zonal history is absent everywhere we have looked. 107 of the 174 schools in 2026 came through regional qualifiers with no public record here.
Round-by-round for the quarter-finals
All nine 2026 quarter-finals are held as final totals only. The contests were broadcast, so the round progression exists on video and in nobody's database.
Round 4 of the second semi-final
PRESEC 44, St. John's 25, Tamale SHS 16. Rounds one, two, three and the final total are recorded. Round four is not, in any source located so far.
The PRESEC quarter-final score
Pulse Ghana's live tracker records PRESEC winning on 23. NSMQ's own quarter-final review names 56 as the highest winning score of the round, PRESEC's. A third-party broadcast of that contest is linked on its page, which is the likeliest way to settle it.
School colours and crests
10 of the 86 schools here have sourced colours, taken from Wikipedia infoboxes rather than the schools themselves. The other 76 render as a blank swatch. No crests: they are the schools' property and the rights question is not worked through.
Contest records before 2026
Every one of the 47 pre-2026 contests here was built out of a video on NSMQ's own channel, which is also the only reason they exist as records at all. 16 seasons going back to 2003 have a playlist on that channel, linked from the champions table. A playlist is somewhere to watch. It is not a record, and turning one into records is the whole of what 2022 took.
The rest of the 2022 bracket
27 schools reached the 2022 quarter-finals, so 27 one-eighth contests were played. 14 of them are in the playlist the organisers published, which leaves 13 that are not. The preliminary stage is worse: three of the eight preliminary contests here sent two schools onward rather than one, so that round was not a straight knockout and its size cannot be worked back out of the bracket.
Photographs of the quarter-finals
47 photographs are embedded across 4 contests and the quarter-final round. Only the final and the three semi-finals have pictures attached to a specific record. NSMQ's quarter-final coverage does not say which contest each frame belongs to, so it sits on the edition page rather than being guessed at. Nothing at all before 2026.
Officials
Three adults are named in the 2026 record we hold: Nana Yaw Adu, plus Mr. Franklin Odum and Mr. James Williams Akapunlinba as school coordinators. There were dozens.
Evidence for the first one
Two articles that promise contestants and deliver schools.
- Meet the contestants: PRESEC, AUGUSCO and Accra Academy battle for 2026 NSMQ crownPulse Ghana · press · retrieved 2026-09-11Headlined "Meet the contestants". Names no contestants. Retained as evidence of the gap, not as a source of names.
- NSMQ 2026: Inside the profiles of this year's three grand finalists chasing gloryMyJoyOnline · press · retrieved 2026-09-11Profiles the three schools. Names no students.
- NSMQ 2026: Accra Academy Beats Achimota School and Bright SHS to Secure First-Ever Grand Finale Spot, Sweep GH₵8,800 in Awards!NSMQ Ghana (Primetime Ltd) · official · retrieved 2026-09-11