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At the basic level of education, one issue that comes up strongly is the Intelligence Quotient level of pupils and their attention span during instructional hours.

From class one to the final year of Junior High School (JHS) education, many of the pupils are below 15 years. The exceptions are a few adults who are not awed by age and are determined to educate themselves.

In the distant past, pupils at the JHS level studied as many as 12 subjects and were required to pass all, though the best six, which included Maths, Science and English, were selected for grading. Later, the subjects were reduced to 11 and yet again the pupils were required to pass all.

As time went by, the policy makers realised the need to further reduce the number of subjects to nine.

The nine subjects, in the view of the Daily Heritage, is still on the high side and ought to be slashed to create a much reasonable subject set areas for JHS education.

It is for this reason that we are advocating for the reduction of the number of subjects studied at the various levels of basic education.

There have been suggestions by players in the education sector that at the kindergarten and lower primary levels, pupils should study only numeracy, literature and physical education, while those in the upper primary and JHS level should be made to study six subjects, instead of the current nine.

The paper holds the position that the number should be reduced even further. We think attention should be focused on the basics needed for Senior High School education and not needless piling up of loads on children. Five important subjects should be enough to prepare the kids for higher education.