Council Of PTAs Backs Double Track System

The National Council of the Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) has asked parents to embrace the Senior High School (SHS) ‘Double Track’ system in good faith to enable more students to be admitted into the senior high schools to improve education.

National President of the PTAs, Alexander Yaw Danso, gave the advice in Tamale on Friday during a two-day workshop of the Northern Regional Council of PTAs to deliberate on how to help the double track and the semester system to succeed.

Council Members of PTAs from the Upper East, Upper West and the Northern Regions are attending the two-day workshop, which is also intended to throw more light on Insurance Policy instituted for Senior High School students to benefit.

Mr Danso explained that the explanation of the Double Track system had not gone down well with many parents in the country and that some people were also trying to sabotage the system, which must be well explained to parents.

He said the double track system was a stop-gap measure to ensure that no child was left out of the classroom so as to educate as many children as possible to eliminate illiteracy in the country.

He stressed the need for parents to enrol their children into the Insurance system, which entailed a lot and was GH¢21.00 per child in the Senior High School for the whole year, which started last year to take of children especially those who had ailments.

He explained that an Insurance Company was giving insurance policy to all SHS students and that in the unlikely event of death of a student’s parent, the company would pay GH¢1,000.00 to the student and give GH¢200.00 a term as pocket money to the affected student.

He said if the parent was owing the company would pay all bills of the student in the school.

Mr Danso said in case of the unlikely death of the student, the company would pay GH¢10,000.00 to the parent or the sponsoring guardian to organise the funeral and that those children who suffer from chronic disease, parents of such parents would receive GH¢15,000.00 and advised parents to register their children into the policy.

He urged PTAs to collect dues and levies themselves and stressed the need for them to comport themselves as responsible parents to ensure that the programme succeeded.

Alhaji Malik Salifu, the Northern Regional Chairman of PTAs, commended the government for its bold decision to implement the Free Senior High School system and appealed to all parents to support the system to succeed.

“As parents, we must support the government to ensure that it succeeded with the implementation of the free SHS” he said and that parents must play their respective roles to help the system to improve on education.

Alhaji Salifu appealed to the government to allow the payment of PTA dues to ensure that PTA projects were not halted for the benefit of the students.