The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum has commended teachers in the various senior high schools across the country for their remarkable contribution towards the success of the 2022/23 West Africa Secondary School Certificate Examination.
The Member of Parliament for Bosomtwe Constituency in the Ashanti Region whiles touting the outstanding results of the candidate who sat for the 2022/2023 West Africa Secondary School Certificate Examination acknowledged the role teachers across the country played in the process.
According to him, the performance of the candidates who sat for the 2022/2023 West Africa Secondary School Certificate Examination is the best results since the introduction of the free senior high school policy by government in 2017 and the best in the history of the examination since 2015.
“We have teachers who have sacrificed their lives so much that, they stay after school, they are there before school and they support these students to work hard so that we can see the outcomes that we are seeing”.
Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum
The Education Minister recounting the rising increase of candidate performance who have sat for the West Africa Secondary School Certificate Examination over the years strongly posited that the outstanding results of the various students indicate the high standard of quality education delivered in the various second cycle institution in the country.
Dr Adutwum further emphasized that since 2017, the individual subject performance of candidates who have sat for the West Africa Secondary School Certificate Examination has improved significantly.
“If we look at what has happened, in integrated science, 28.7% passed in 2015. When we say pass, we mean the pass that can take you to university, A1 to C6. Now it’s 66.82%, and this cannot be by accident. It has been increasing over the years.”
Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum
Adutwum Touts Government Interventions In Senior High Schools
Furthermore, Dr Adutwum indicated that government over the years have rolled out several initiatives and interventions aside the free senior high school to deal with students who have specific challenges with certain subjects within the various senior high schools across the country to assist them to improve upon their performance in some respective subjects.
According to him, some of the government interventions include special classes which is purposefully designed to offer students the needed supports for them to improve their proficiency in some subject which they have some peculiar challenges in it.
“This is something that Wesley Girls have been doing for a long time. They assess students who come to them and after assessing, they prescribe interventions for them,”
Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum
Moreover, the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum affirmed government continuous commitment to improving the standard of teaching and learning across all the various education institutions in the country particularly in the second cycle institutions through effective collaboration with the heads, teaching and non-teaching staffs.
Dr Osei Adutwum, thus refuted claims that standard in the country’s educational institutions particularly in the senior high schools has reduced drastically.
He explained that, even though enrollment into the senior high schools have increased significantly due to the introduction of the free senior high school policy by government and which traditionally means the standard of education would reduce, the reverse is the case.
“So invariably you hear people talking that standards have fallen, things are so bad. It’s their projection as to what they think should be happening. Because around the world, if you look at education systems what happens invariably is that countries that increase enrollment rapidly diminish learning outcomes.
“So even education experts in Ghana, I’ve heard some of them say standards have fallen because enrollment has gone up. You see that is what is supposed to be but that is not what is happening”.
Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum
The Education Minister referred to Ghana’s good fortune as ‘Ghanaian magic’ pointing out that the nation’s ability to efficiently utilize its surplus of highly educated teachers kept standards from declining.
