Making political capital out of senior high school education is horrible, unconscionable, and wicked - Part 3

Folks, just when we thought that Team Akufo-Addo would exercise caution in how it does things, more is emerging to shock us. This government is really in a race with itself to its own disadvantage. Here is the latest in its circus as reported:

“The government is finalising steps to start the double-track or semester system to boost enrollment under its flagship free Senior High School (SHS) education programme.

Education Minister, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh, made the revelation at a sensitisation programme organised for education directors of, heads of senior high school and public relation officers in the education sector on Saturday, July 21.

In a single-track system, students and staff are in school or vacation at the same time within an academic year.

But the double year-round system divides the entire student body and staff into two different tracks. So while one track is in school, the other is on vacation.

The rotation sequence will depend on the year-round calendar being used. In Ghana, the school calendar starts from September and ends in April with three different terms. The first term is from September to December, the second term starts in January and ends in April while the third term is from April/May to July.

According to Dr Prempeh, the new system will close an enrollment gap of 181,99, adding that as it stands now only 90,000 spaces are available for the 2018 September intake.

Because the new system reduces the contact hours between students and teachers, a remedial school will also be instituted on Saturdays for English and Mathematics where the government is committed to pay GHS50 per student per semester.

Heads of schools would also be supported with incentives for supervision on Saturdays. (See https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Free-SHS-to-run-double-track-system-amid-concerns-by-NAGRAT-671032).

MY IMMEDIATE REACTION
What waywardness? As yet, another misguided move by Team Akufo-Addo on the basis of mere impulse for limited political expediency and not sound reasoning in line with reality. It’s all about political capital and not what will benefit Ghana. Who at all is thinking right in this government? Why does Team Akufo-Addo keep undercutting itself everyday?

I like it very much that the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has been quick to sound the alarm bells. It wants the government to proceed with caution by consulting stakeholders in education before diving into this “huhudious” agenda.

What was it about the three-track approach that didn’t work but which a limited two-track approach and a useless “sandwich” one will achieve to move Ghana forward at the level of secondary education?

FLASHBACK
In those days that we attended secondary schools and did 5 years, things weren’t all the time smooth; but those who knew how to “study” made it to higher levels, regardless of the privations. We did so under the three-track system.

When Rawlings changed all to the Senior High School system and reduced the length to 4 years, many things happened that Kufuor thought he could tackle with some reversals. None changed the three-track approach until now that Akufo-Addo has unilaterally moved to impose it on Ghanaians with alarming twists and turns. The rush is too much for comfort. Why so as if the roof is coming down on Ghana all too soon?

It is more than nauseating for anybody to even think about a “sandwich” programme for secondary-level education in Ghana (lasting a few months in a year) that is expected to prepare students for tertiary education to become problem solvers to move Ghana out of the woods.

I like very much what the NAGRAT President, Angel Carbonu, said: “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.”

“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 told Citi FM last week. (Source: https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Free-SHS-to-run-double-track-system-amid-concerns-by-NAGRAT-671032),

I agree a zillion times with Mr. Carbonu and anybody seeing things the way he has done.

To be continued…
By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor
(E-mail: [email protected])

Monday, July 23, 2018