A Deputy Ranking Member on the Education Committee of Parliament Dr. Clement Apaak has said although it is a piece of welcome news that first-year students will not go through the double-track system, the initiative has not ended.
He said forms two and three students would still be practicing the double-track system hence the directive has not been phased out.
The government has announced through the Spokesperson of the Ministry of Education that students entering year one won’t do double track.
But Dr. Apaak reacting to the news indicated that the challenges debilitating effective teaching and learning in our secondary schools go beyond the double track.
He said it would be prudent for the government to inform Ghanaians of the number of schools that are currently undergoing the system and those taken off the double track.
In a statement, he mentioned two major issues including what he described as unwholesome and inadequate food items served in our schools as well as inadequate textbooks for our students.
According to him, three to four students share textbooks when it should be a student per textbook.
He wants to know what the government os found to solve these other challenges.
“What is being done to resolve these and other issues such as the culture of silence, where heads of institutions are penalised for making public challenges their schools face?”
Read his full statement below
While this is welcome news, it’s important to state that the double track system has not ended. It will be helpful to know the number of Secondary schools still practicing the double track system as far as years two and three students. This is because, from the onset, it was not all the then 720 public Senior Secondary Schools which practiced the obnoxious double track.
It must also be made clear that the challenges debilitating effective teaching and learning in our Secondary schools go beyond double track. Here are two examples:
1) inadequate/unwholesome food items supplied to schools by buffer stock supplier. The challenges of delays in getting food to the schools, and sometimes duping huge quantities of one food item on schools, which have no recourse to complain can’t be overlooked. This creates serious problems for school managers as students refuse to eat same food most of the time, and impacts negatively on the nutritional needs of the students.
2) Students share core subject textbooks, sometimes three or four students per core textbook when each student is entitled to a core textbook per core subject free. Why are students sharing core textbooks when the programme makes provision for students to have a core textbook per core subject?
What is being done to resolve these and other issues such as the culture of silence, where heads of institutions are penalised for making public challenges their schools face?
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana
