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Posted by Chester Morton / Saturday 8 September 2018 / No comments
Ghana’s double-track system: two colours as determinants
By Divine Sewornu Dzokoto
The colours green and yellow, which have been important in
early childhood education and traffic control, have now become even more
important in Ghana’s free SHS flagship programme.
Fulfilling a campaign promise
As part of the its campaign promise before the 2016 general
elections, the New Patriotic Party promised to ensure that every qualified
Junior High School graduate receives secondary school education free of charge.
With the party’s electoral fortunes in December of 2016, the ruling government
is redeeming the campaign promise; however, the implementation is facing
infrastructural problems.
Opposition
The largest opposition party in Ghana’s parliament, the
National Democratic Congress, which counter-proposed the progressively free
secondary school education model in the 2016 electoral campaigns, opposed the
wholesale implementation of the free SHS by the government on the grounds of inadequate
infrastructure, among other things. Other entities which opposed the programme
included IMANI Ghana, a Ghanaian Think Tank and the Integrated Social
development Centre (ISODEC).
Implementation and infrastructural problems
The government of Ghana went ahead with the implementation of
the free SHS anyway in spite of the many voices of caution. After just one
academic year, the much envisaged problem of inadequate infrastructure has
reared its ugly head and in order to go around it, the government is
introducing the double-track system in the 2018/19 academic year.
Double tract solution
The double-tract system, which is to apply only to the first
years for now, divides the teachers and the students into two large groups. One
group shall start school and be in school for 40 days. When they vacate, the
second group will then go to use the same facilities also for 40 days, marking
the end of the first semester. The first group will now go back for another 40
days to end their academic year. In all, there going to be two semesters for
the first year students. Four hundred secondary schools out of the over 600
have been selected to implement the programme.
After the release of the Basic Education Certificate
Examination results by the West African Examinations Council, 423,134 qualified
students have been placed in their choice of schools by the Computerized Schools
Selection and Placement Centre. With this done, the colours green and yellow
have become important in determining who goes to school now and who goes later.
Green means a student must proceed to school when the 2018/19 academic school
session starts and gold colour means you need to wait.
Relevance of green and gold colours
If one recalls the nursery rhyme where “green” means GO and
“yellow” means GET READY, one will see how similarly the two colours are being
used by the implementers of the double-tract system to prevent the congestion
that is likely to occur if this was left in the hands of the heads of the
various second cycle institutions. Thankfully, the third colour in the famous
nursery rhyme RED has been discarded; otherwise there would have been a stop
sign for some of the qualified students.
The first group with the colour green starts school on 11th
September and comes back home after 40 days while the second group with the
yellow colour goes to school on 8th November also for 40 days.
Comments
What do you think about the double-track education system? Do
you foresee any more hitches ahead? Share your thoughts in the comments
section.
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