Don’t Implement ‘Multi-Track’ SHS System In Haste – NAGRAT Tells Gov't

The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has cautioned government against implementing the multi-track system in the Senior High Schools without consulting stakeholders in education.

A former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Education, Winneba, Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah , espoused the “multi-track calendar system” to help solve the situation where qualified students are turned away by senior high schools due to limited infrastructure.

Under the multi-track system, the senior high school system will run a semester system where students will be divided into two groups to attend classes at different times of the year.

According to Prof. Anamuah-Mensah, the multi-track system meant that the number of prospective students would be enrolled within two separate entries.

He said for this to be possible, the three-term academic calendar system for Senior High Schools would have to be reduced to two semesters just like in the universities.

But Angel Carbonu called on the government not rush into adopting the multi-track policy.

“I would suggest that Prof. Anamuah and his team should start a stakeholder discussion on this issue. Let us not rush into something like that,” he said.

“In the document that I saw, this policy is supposed to last for only five years because within the next five years, what we are hearing from the corridors of power is that government would have then built infrastructure to accommodate all the two streams. When that happens, what would you do with those teachers? We need to sit down and discuss this situation thoroughly as a nation. Let us not rush into something that will spite our faces over time,” Carbonu cautioned.

Reports show that only a few out of the over 500,000 students who graduate from Junior High School in Ghana are able to make it into the SHS because of lack of space.

Ghana has a just about 800 senior high schools across the country. It is believed the government wants to implement the multi-track system to create space for the increasing number of students seeking high school education, a result of the government’s Free SHS policy.

Some analysts within the educational sector have proposed the improvement of vocational and technical education to absorb the backlog.

But the NAGRAT President argued that there is pressure for more enrolment at the senior high level because of the free Senior High School policy which Carbonu believes is not sustainable.

Carbonu proposed that the free SHS should only cover those who cannot afford senior high school education.

“As a nation, we’ve been here before and we could not sustain it. So why are we creating the impression as if it is sustainable, it is absolutely not,” he added.

Multi-track SHS system won't work – Aheto Tsegah

A former Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) Charles Aheto Tsegah , says the proposed “multi-track calendar system will not work.

Aheto Tsegah
“This multi-track system had been tried many years ago, we tried it long ago for basic education, we went to school morning and afternoon, that is multi-track system and that did not work for us. It did not help us, it created a lot of problems in terms of allowing space for children to be truants, so for me that won't work,” he said.

He added that the ideas suggested by the professor which includes, having two semesters, doubling the number of teachers and continuous teaching during vacation, are ideal but not realistic because the Ghanaian educational system has not been structured to accommodate the proposed multi-track system.