By
Benjamin Mensah, GNA
Accra, Nov 7, GNA – The
Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) Caucus in Parliament is asking the
government to address the challenges of the “double track” system in the
implementation of the Free Senior High School (SHS).
Aside infrastructure
deficits, the Minority noted other challenges as high rate of teenage
pregnancies as a result of long and frequent semester breaks; the ‘Semester
System’, it said, is not helping the delivery of quality education, heads of
institutions not allowed to speak their minds on the running of the ‘double
track’ system; and poor quality and inadequate food given to students.
Others are; poor
quality of, and insufficient exercise books, with only textbooks for Core
Subjects being supplied and that of Elective Subjects left out; and parents
ignored in running of the Senior High Schools.
Mr Peter
Nortsu-Kotoe, Ranking Member on Education, and MP for Akatsi North, with some
Minority Members on the Education Committee, addressing a News conference, at
Parliament House, in Accra, called on the Government, to urgently address the
concerns to make the administration of the schools less laborious and hazardous
for the Heads of schools and for the benefit of Ghanaian people.
He blamed the
Government for ignoring the Minority’s advice to hasten slowly in implementing
the Free SHS Programme, recalling that the Minority’s concern at the time was
that the Government provided the necessary infrastructure and logistics that
were critically needed for the take-off of the programme.
“This was ignored
and we all saw what happened, such as the overcrowding in dormitories as well
as classrooms,” the Ranking Member said.
He added: “In the
second year of the Free Senior High School programme, and in response to the
increasing lack of space in schools, Government introduced the infamous shift
system called the “Double Track”.
Mr Nortsu-Kotoe,
said Mrs Benedicta Seidu, the National Director of the Girls Education Unit at
the Ghana Education Service (GES), was reported in the media that a total of
7,293 teenage pregnancies were recorded in basic and second cycle schools in
the 2018/2019 academic year across the country.
Of that data, Mrs
Seidu was reported to have said upper primary recorded 1,024 cases, junior high
school (JHS) had 4,836 cases, while there were 1,433 cases in SHS; and Mr
Nortsu-Kotoe said “the long and frequent semester breaks were the major causes
of the teenage pregnancies.
“Students spend
eight weeks at school and the same length of time at home.”
He described the
resultant “semester system” emanating from the “Double Track System” as
operating like a “traffic light”, which
is not helping in the delivery of quality education.
Also, “sometimes the
reopening date for one track is hurriedly postponed to the disadvantage of
plans put in place by parents and their wards.
The Minority was
worried “a long stay at home by students during the long vacations also
unnecessarily exposed them to social risks such as teenage pregnancies,
alcoholism, cultivation of deviant behaviour and lifestyles arising from peer
pressure and abuse of other drugs.
The Minority
described as inaccurate the claim of the Government of completing 804 projects,
explaining that contractors did shoddy work as a result of excessive pressure
put on them, and urged the Government to release contractors’ payments on time
to fill the infrastructural gap for the Fres SHS.
Mr Nortsu-Kotoe
appealed to Government that heads of institutions should be allowed to speak
their mind on the performance of the “Double Track”, without victimisation.
GNA
