A Deputy Minister of Education, Rev. John Ntim Fordjour, has reiterated that the nation’s education sector has seen a massive boost in diverse ways within the past five years.
He explained that the massive infrastructural development by the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-led government had led to easing the pressure on accommodation in Senior High Schools across the country.
Speaking to a section of the media in Accra last Friday, Rev. Fordjour said the increase in infrastructure in schools had led to the new cohort system whereby each year group would be in school together eliminating the Gold/Green double-entry of Form One and Two students.
That, he said, did not mean that the double-track system had been abolished but that it was only being operated in a different form for easy management and administration.
He said each year group being in school at the same time would ease the burden of teachers since they would not have to set different forms of questions for the same year group due to different times of writing their examinations and other forms of monitoring and evaluation.
Rev. Ntim Fordjour, who is the Deputy Minister-in-charge of General Education at the Education Ministry and also the Member of Parliament for Assin South in the Central Region, stated that similarly all Form Two students would go to school as one cohort not divided into two.
He was upbeat that as more school buildings were completed, the school population would report to school at the same time as one cohort as it pertained in Single Track schools.
Rev. Ntim Fordjour assured the nation that irrespective of the cohort that one attended, the same instruction quality would be provided to the students, he, therefore, urged parents not to worry at all.
Background
After weeks of waiting by anxious parents and other stakeholders in the education sector, the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, Prof. Kwasi Opoku Amankwa, last Friday announced the various reopening dates for pre-tertiary schools as well as other schemes for its operation for the next three years.
It is based on this announcement that many social commentators and social media users started various speculations about the double-track system and the new cohort system.
The Ministry of Education, late last year, set up a team, led by Rev. Ntim Fordjour, to come out with a new timetable for the management of education in the country.
This led to a planned and well-structured timetable for the next three years for the smooth running of the education sector as effort was being made to go back to the previous education calendar as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic which led to a change from the normal school calendar.
source: graphic.com
