Double-Track System Must Be Truly Temporary

Ebo Quansah in Accra .
I have always believed that President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is a man on a mission. The present occupier of Government House is bent on changing this society positively. That must be positive news for Ghanaians who survived three years of curfew, and a total of 19 years without proper direction.

There is no better means of effecting this monumental change than to begin with education. Gone were the days when the nouveau rich of society was the cocoa farmer.

If you visit Kumasi and take a trip down Ashanti Newtown and see the kind of huge buildings sprawling all over the place, you will appreciate what cocoa has done to move this society. 'Cocoa is Ghana, and Ghana is cocoa,' the lyrics in one song says of the benefits of the golden crop.

Evidence is emerging that the cocoa farmer is beginning to take the lower rungs on the rich man's league table. Another group of the rich of society is emerging, completely dwarfing the exploits of the cocoa farmer. The gleam of East Legon and Adjriganor in Accra is gradually losing out to a new emerging rich, armed with education.

It is as clear as daylight that the days of the rich man in traditional cloth, wearing native sandals and buying anything he or she fancied, and who was game for tricksters who could sell state-owned factories and trains owned by the state to the naïve rich man from the interior, is over.

The new rich of society drive flashy cars and live in more fancy places. I am told that East Legon and Adriganno in Accra, which were the rich neighbourhoods not too long ago, are now playing second fiddle to the likes of Trasacco Valley and the holiday resort of New Botianor etc, where prices of buildings are quoted in millions of dollars.

Education is working wonders in this and all our society. And the sitting President is hell-bent on creating the enabling atmosphere for the average Ghanaian to escape from the pangs of poverty and join the growing list of the rich in society.

The free secondary education is the key the Head of State intends using to unlock the potential in the Ghanaian youth to bring prosperity to themselves and the society that props them up.

According to Nana Akufo-Addo, it is his dream that the Ghanaian child would enjoy free education to the secondary level, from where he would be well-grounded to pursue his or her own dream of making it to the top of the social ladder.

Addressing a durbar of chiefs and people of Beposo, as part of his five-day tour of the Ashanti Region, the Head of State said the new policy on education is designed to ensure that every child is able to complete second cycle education, no matter the financial status of his/her or parents or guardians.

“I am determined to make it a binding policy as we legislate free SHS, so that it becomes the minimum qualification Ghanaian children attain as they start from kindergarten,” he assured.

The charge is on Education Minister Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh to railroad the new policy into fruition, no matter the challenges of inadequate resource and increasing number of beneficiaries eager to improve themselves on the back of the education ladder.

The physician who trained to take care of the sick is now diagnosing an entirely different form of ailment. This time, it is in the classroom, where the growing number of enrolment is threatening to overwhelm the system.

The brilliant young man, grandson of Otumfuo Prempeh II, has examined the sick education system, and has come to the firm conclusion that the growing number of enrolment means that something very drastic ought to be done to ensure that every child who qualifies for secondary education, is never left behind.

At a meeting with the media in Accra on Tuesday, August 7, Dr. Prempeh, who is fondly referred to among his peers as 'Napo', outlined a new model of a double-track school calendar with effect from next academic year in September to take care of the problem on hand.

What this translates into is an introduction of the semester system for secondary education. According to the programme of action, the first batch of students would enroll for the science, business and arts courses in our various secondary schools in September. This batch will be in the classroom for 81 days. They will then break for holidays, spanning another 81 days.

The next batch of the same number of students will report in the same school to go through the same programme. The second group will also be in the classroom for another 81 days. After their 81 days of tutorials, they will vacate for holidays to give room for the first batch to come back to complete the academic year.

Our children in 'Group B' will come home for their tenure of 81 days, after which 'Group A' will return to complete their academic year.

According to the official programme outlined by the Minister, teaching hours per annum for each of the two classes will increase from the normal 1,080 hours to 1,134 hours a year. The programme also envisages an increase in teaching hours from six hours per day to eight.

Dr. Prempeh told the media that the new policy has been taken through stakeholders' consultations. He announced the development of a media strategy to educate Ghanaians to appreciate the essence for the new deal, which has been designed to take care of the growing number of beneficiaries of the free-second cycle education, while the government tackles the major issue of building new schools and expanding existing infrastructure to take care of the numbers.

Vigorous training of headmasters and their staff is ongoing at the moment, as schools prepare to open their doors to the new policy next month.

For the avoidance of doubt, kids entering secondary school compounds for the first time are to note the following. All classes in the double-track system will begin at 7:30am instead of 8 O'clock, and end at 3:30pm. The one-track system used to finish at 2pm each day. Teaching days have been reduced from 180 days to 162 per annum. In the boarding houses, students are expected to be in residence for 225 days a year, instead of the 265 days known in the old system.

Holidays for teaching staff have increased from 84 days (12 weeks) to 112 days, which translates into 16 weeks.

Throughout his presentation, the minister kept referring to the fact that this measure is only temporary and that the government is gearing up for a momentous stride in the construction of new schools and the improvement of existing infrastructure.

Trend analysis outline by the Minister indicates that in 2013, out of 391,032 school children who registered for the Basic School Certificate Examination (BECE), 352,202 were placed by the computer system to attend secondary schools in Ghana. Out of this figure, 261,598 were actually enrolled, leaving a large chunk of 90,604 potential students unable to benefit from second cycle education.

In 2014, 422,946 registered for the same examination. A total of 386,412 students were placed by the computer system, but only 273,152 actually gained admission, with 113,260 kids losing out. This translated into a huge chunk of 29.3 percent of secondary school going children without education.

In 2016, the year before free-education was introduced, 461,009 children sat for the examination. 420,132 were placed, but only 308,799 actually entered the classroom, leaving 111,336 children, or 26.5 percent, losing out.

When the new policy took effect in 2017, 468,060 kids registered for the BECE. Out of this number, 424,224 were placed. The actual number of students registered in the 696 second cycle institutions throughout Ghana was 361,771, with 62,453, a total percentage of 14.7, failing to gain admission.

This year, a total of 521,710 children are projected to have sat the BECE, with 497,610 expected to be placed. Enrolment is estimated to hit 472,730. With this increase in numbers, there is a growing demand for a system that will absorb them. That is the main reason why the Double-Track System is necessary.

In other words, the idea is informed by the exigencies of the moment. My information is that within the next five years, the government will be very busy on the construction front to ensure that as many as 622 six-unit classrooms are provided for secondary education.

One hopes that once the double-track process begins, and is found to have solved the problem, officialdom does not abandon the kids to their fate, and that what is planned as a temporary measure would not become a permanent feature in our classrooms.

The task of providing 622 six-unit classrooms is going to be challenging indeed. I am not comfortable, especially with the price tag of GH¢650,000 hanging on a single six-unit classroom. It is a fact universally acknowledged that the construction market is expensive in this country.

But it is also a fact that if you give GH¢650,000 to an individual to build, more than two or three of such projects are likely to emerge. I am not a contractor, but I believe strongly that if a private person gets hold of this amount of money, he or she would build acquire a number of mansions.

One of the surest ways through which the Ministry of Monitoring and Evaluation would give meaning to its existence is by looking into figures quoted for government contracts. I am under no illusion that a proper audit would drastically reduce the cost of government contracts.

In the meantime, I recommend the Double-Track System to help reduce class sizes in our schools, and to serve as a means of enhancing teaching and learning. It is an idea which time has come, but like the Minister explained, it should be temporary indeed.

I shall return!