Mankessim Paramount Chief Describes Double-Track As Brilliant

Nana Amanfo Edu VI, the Paramount Chief of the Mankessim Traditional area has described the newly implemented double-track system policy at the Senior High School (SHS) level as innovative and brilliant.

Talks about the new policy has been going on for months with Minority spearheading a host of criticism on Government’s decision to go ahead and implement the policy. Finally this month, Government and the Education Ministry has rolled out the double-track system and student have been admitted into various Senior High Schools. Through the new system, over 450,000 students have gained admission into SHS across the country.

Speaking at a durbar yesterday held in honor of his Exellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the new initiative with the backing of the free Senior High School has curbed the situation where over thousand students would have not gotten the opportunity to get education at the SHS level.

“we are living witnesses to the fact that when President Akufo-Addo said he will implement the Free SHS policy, in the first year, over 200,000 Ghanaian children were admitted into SHS, for which parents did not pay any fees”, the paramount chief noted.

He further reiterated that; “for us, as Chiefs, we wish to state, here and now, that Double-Track policy is brilliant and innovative.”

He further explained that if the system should have been used last year, it would have prevented a lot of student from becoming drop out as they would have had the chance to enter into SHS and further their education.

“If this year, we had stuck to the same numbers of 2017, and admitted only 200,000. What would become of the excess 250,000? What would have been their status in this life?” If only students on the ‘green track’ had been admitted into SHS, and the students on the ‘gold track’ were left to stay at home, this means that, in five years, and with an average of 200,000 dropping out of school every year, we would have deprived one million children from being educated”, Nana Amanfo Edu VI.

Despite his fondness of the new policy, he admits that there is some difficulty in implementing the policy because there is pressure on resources. He believes it is better that way than to deny children the access to education.

“It is true that there is pressure, and there is going to be pressure on resources. But it is better to put the pressure on the resources than to deprive these innocent children from being educated”, he said.

He further urged all to examine the possibility of using the Heritage Fund to construct schools, and also towards the education of the very generation that we are saving these monies for. He opines that it is now wrong to invest the money in the education of the children we describe as the future leaders at this point in time.