The Minister of Planning, Professor Gyan Baffour, has said government will consider a possible review of the duration of the senior high school education from three to four years.
It is recalled that during the New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration under former President John Agyekum Kufuor, the duration was shifted to four years. However, when the National Democratic Congress (NDC), under the late President John Evans Atta Mills took over, the duration was reversed to three years.
But another NPP government under Akufo-Addo has said it will consider reviewing the duration after an assessment of the Free SHS programme, which started this year, has been done.
Speaking at the launch of the Ghana Social Development Outlook 2016 at the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research, Prof Gyan Baffour said: “The first course of action for the government is to assess how effective the three years is being used.”
He further noted that, the three years under the current system is effectively about two-and-a-half-years, so the government will look “to make sure that this ‘three years’ [actually] becomes almost three years”.
“The time lost, we have to make it up. That is the first thing that we are trying to do now, and based on that, we can now use the analysis that they do after that time, to see what the public thinks and to decide on whether we move for three years or four years,” he said.
He added : “…If it is found out the four years is better than three years in training our children, then money should not be the basis in denying them that four years… It is not only access, but it also includes quality, and if it is four years that will give them quality and that is what the people want, so be it.”
Source:Ghana/AccraFM.com
