The Executive Director for the Institute for Educational Studies (IES), Peter Enti, has intimated that due to the postponement of the reopening date, education of most SHS students will be negatively affected.
He made this statement during an interview where he expressed his concerns over the recent change in academic calendar for Senior High Schools (SHS).
This, he says, has become frequent in the last 3 years under the free Senior High School policy.
“The academic calendar of SHS students in the past 3 years have been very erratic. Their timetables and academic year have always been shifted and changed and parents,;teachers and students who formerly could plan their lives cannot do so anymore. This is not helping anybody.”
Peter Enti
Mr Enti admitted that his outfit is very concerned about this development and feels this is not something that should have happened.
“Whatever challenge they are citing for postponing school reopening is not something that just dropped from the sky. It is something we have all known all this while and we are disappointed. We simply hope it doesn’t repeat itself moving forward.”
Peter Enti
According to him, the issues of infrastructural challenges raised by the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) has been a long standing issue.
“If they knew this before planning the academic calendar, then why wasn’t that solved long ago?”
Peter Enti
He described the issue as a huge blunder on the part of authorities and indicated that, “in some countries, those in charge would’ve resigned. Somebody should be held responsible for this.”
Minority dismisses GES apology
Meanwhile, the Minority in Parliament has dismissed an apology by the Ghana Education Service (GES);for the sudden postponement of reopening for final year Senior High School students. IES IES
Speaking on the issue, the Deputy Ranking Member on Parliament’s Education Committee, Dr. Clement Apaak described the apology as insincere and accused the government of risking the lives of students;who travel long distances to school.
“I think that the apology is insincere largely because they had ample time;and given that GES is the principal agency, there was no reason why they could not have anticipated this;and announced the postponement much earlier, so that parents,;students would not have gone through the stress that they have gone through; Students risking their lives to travel as far as they have to school and be told to go back again. GES, the government, and the Ministry are not being sincere.”
Clement Apaak
The MP for Builsa South also blamed the inadequate space in the various schools as the reason why;the government prevented the final year students from going back to school.
He further chastised the government for its inability to adequately prepare for the surge in student enrolment as a result of the ‘poor implementation’ of the Free Senior School policy in 2017.
The Ghana Education Service on Wednesday April 6, 2021 postponed the reopening of school for Senior High School (SHS) Form 3 students. The SHS 3 students were expected to resume on April 6 but the GES in a release rescheduled it to May 5, 2021.
GES noted that the action became necessary after management considered a proposal from the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS).
