SHS: 3 years or 4 years?

By I. K. Gyasi
 
There seems to be a resurrection of the controversy over whether the duration of the senior high school programme should be 3 or 4 years.

Professor Kwesi Yankah, one-time Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana and now the Head of Central University, has reportedly proposed an arrangement in which students in so-called well-endowed senior high schools (SHS) will do the programme in 3 years, while those in so-called less well-endowed schools do it in 4. He was speaking at a public lecture.

In the Friday, May 20, 2016 issue of the DAILY GUIDE, Professor Ernest Ayittey, out-going Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Legon, is reported to favour a longer period for the SHS programme.

The paper reports him as saying that students admitted into the university after completing the four-year education system in SHS system performed far better than those who were educated under the three-year system.

He is directly quoted as saying: “I think I have gathered from my colleagues and others that the longer students stayed in school, the better they (Form Five or Ordinary Level) are for the university.”

The duration of the SHS programme has become a bone of contention between the currently-ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), with the NDC favouring the 3-year duration, while the NPP favours the 4-year duration.

It was the Provisional National Defence Committee (PNDC), the parent of the NDC, that introduced the Junior Secondary School and Senior Secondary School Programme in 1987. By 1991, the first batch of the senior secondary school students had been admitted.

As I remember it, the government and the educational authorities told the nation that the Senior Secondary School programme was lower than the old Sixth Form or Advanced Level, but higher than the Ordinary Level.

The SSS programme was divided into two, namely a Core Programme and an Elective Programme. The Core Programme consisted of the following common subjects to be studied by all students: English Language, Mathematics, Science, Agricultural Science, a Ghanaian Language, Social Studies, and Physical Education as a non-examinable subject.

The Elective Programme was categorised into Science, Arts, Business, Vocational and Technical and Art. Each student was expected to choose one group and select three or four subjects from that group. The duration for the whole programme was fixed at three years.

As I recall, the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) suggested at the time that the duration be extended, or the number of subjects should be reduced.

Unfortunately, it was a period of great tyranny, during which heads of schools expressed an opinion at great risk to their dignity. Education officials, who were once heads themselves, threw their weight about and heads had to run to find them dishonourable graves.

Today, while it appears that the number of Core subjects has been reduced, this is not the case. English is made up of English Language and Literature in English; Science consists of Science (Physics, Chemistry and Biology) and Agriculture; Mathematics, and Social Studies.

As I have been told, though the four-year duration introduced by the Kufuor-led government of the NPP has been taken away and replaced with the three-year duration, the syllabus in use is still the one for the four-year programme. This has increased the burden on both students and staff.

Again, a great deal of time is lost between the admission of first year students and the beginning of studies. In other words, by the time the first year students settle down to study, almost the whole of the first term is gone, wasted.

For some time now, the final examinations have come to be taken early, as early as March or April. It means there is not enough time to complete the course. Do not forget holidays, co-curricular and other activities, from the kindergarten to the tertiary, that also take away time from studies. And do not forget the unstable supply of electricity and its devastating effect on studies.

Students and staff are simply overburdened. Gone are the days when holidays and rest periods achieved what they were meant for – relaxation and recuperation.

Students hardly rest; normal school work, vacation classes, special one-on-one tutorials paid for by parents to reinforce whatever may have been learnt in school, group work, etc. The physical, psychological and financial toll on staff, students and parents can only be imagined.

Shall we all remove the party politics from important national matters? We should not be deceived by the flashes of brilliance displayed at Science and Mathematics quizzes. The brilliance only emphasises the gloom.

Only the most optimistic, the most innocent, the most ignorant, or the most foolish will say that everything is fine with our education. Many things are wrong, and that includes the state of our second cycle education.