The government has adopted the double-track (semester/sandwich) system to increase enrollment under its flagship programme, the Free Senior High School.
This was revealed by Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh, the Minister of Education at a sensitization programme organized for Metro/Municipal/District Directors of Education, Heads of Senior High School and Public Relation Officers of the Education Sector on the theme ‘No qualified child be left out’ on 21st July, 2018 at the Accra Girls Senior High School in Accra.
Briefing participants, Dr Prempeh emphasized that the exigencies of the situation call for a shift system to be introduced where there will be adequate use of the existing classrooms.
According to Dr Prempeh, a gap of 181,993 exists which calls for the double-track school calendar system to absorb students. He added that as it stands now only 90,000 spaces are available for the 2018 September intake.
The new programme creates a calendar of two semesters in a year for the SHS 1 class containing 81 days per each semester and 41 days of vacation for a sandwich class.
He further added that the new system will run in all the categories A and B Senior high schools in the country.
A software has been developed to change the timetable to make room for the new system.
The Minister was optimistic that over 8,000 teachers are being recruited to handle the sandwich classes because teachers would not be deprived of their holidays.
He claimed that the new system was an adoption and not invention since few countries including Kenyan, Japan, Costa Rica, Germany, Australia and United States are already running the system.
The new system reduces the current contact hours and so a remedial school is also instituted on Saturdays for English and Mathematics where government is committed to pay 50 Ghana cedis per student per semester as an academic intervention. Heads of schools would also be supported with incentives for supervision on Saturdays.
In all, a total of 323,061,739.00 is earmarked to cushion the remedial school for the year.
The double-track system was proposed by Professor Jophus Anamuah-Mensah, an educationist and a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Education Winneba, saying it is the best way to go.
Source: 3news
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THAT IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SQUARE PEGS ARE FORCED IN AROUND HOLES
THIS GOVERNMENT HAS RUSHED TO GET THINGS WRONG. CHILDREN ATTENDING 3 TERM CLASSES IN A YEAR ARE FINDING IT DIFFICULT TO SCORE PASS MARKS FOR THEIR FINAL EXAMS. SO WHAT DO YOU THINK WITH THIS YET ANOTHER RUSH FOR FINDING SOLUTION TO A RUSHED SITUATION. HOW MANY TIMES HAVEN'T WE HEARD TEACHER COMPLAINING ABOUT ARREARS OWNED TO THEM BY THE GOV'T IN TERMS OF ALLOWANCES.? SO WHAT'S THE GUARANTEE THAT THIS 50 CEDIS PER STUDENT PER SEMESTER WOULDN'T BE LIKE THE EXISTING ALLOWANCES THAT GOV'T CANNOT PAY.THE FACT REMAINS THAT, THIS IS AN ADHOC AND A MAKE SHIFT ARRANGEMENT WHICH CONFIRMS THAT THIS GOVERNMENT RUSHED IN THIS POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY. THIS MORNING I OVER HEARD ONE DEPUTY EDUCATION MINISTER SAYING, WE WILL REVERT BACK TO THE OLD SYSTEM WHEN ENOUGH INFRASTRUCTURES HAD BEEN PUT IN PLACE. SO WHY PUT THE CAT BEFORE HORSE TO COMPROMISING THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION IN THIS COUNTRY?
Are you a prophet? indeed people will use all their energy to rather shoot down this, reading carefully what the next commenter said @ Okomfo Anokye, its clear he has some doubts, lol. Okomfo why do you nee details? you don't think the ministers and the Professors who came to this conclusions are intelligent enough? must they give you the details before you believe? This is how the nation wreckers begin, they start with give me details, when you give him details then they will pick each item at a time and run it down, they can even spend hundreds of GHS on adverts just to bring down. did NASA provided details when they put first man on the moon? is it not a good idea to remove kids from the streets? aaaaba
The info provided here is not enough. Where can we read details?
What makes you think this is a good idea? Very soon it will turn into the usual game of NDC vrs NPP debate. Rather than people from the other side offering ideas to help make it better. All their efforts will be geared towards bringing it down and not to make it a success. WATCH THE SPACE
Big brains at work,Kudos to the gov't for making sure every Ghanaian child tastes SHS.This is the gov't we've yearned for all these decades.May God bless our homeland Ghana.
Asgil, the answer is clearly in the body of the write-up. More qualified students who would ordinarily have stayed at home and have their education curtailed have been given out an opportunity to attend school by the govt of Ghana using more of the tax payers monies available to it. While there is enough money for their tuition and feeding, there is not enough to build more classrooms and other facilities. So using the same existing schools, there are going to use a sandwich system as pertaining in the universities now. Gimpa was the first school to roll the sandwich system in a commercial or business fashion. While some SHS students are on vacation after the first semester, others will now begin that semester
Thank for giving our leaders great wisdom to give the nation quality education. But i pray for more resources, riches, wealth and honesty for the to manage these blessings to build more classrooms and other facilities since the BECE Graduate who qualify yearly will be increasing astronomically. God Richly Bless HE Nana Addo and Hon Minister as well as Prof Annamoah
This is still infinitely better than letting them roam in the streets with dog chains...
what has led to this shift or double track system?