President Nana Akufo-Addo has not taken any decision for a reversal of the three-year senior high school system to a four-year one, but “if he so comes to that decision and I am confirmed as the Minister [of Education], I’ll see to the prosecution, in the house, of a four-year SHS but that decision has not been made,” Education Minister-designate Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh has said.
The four-year SHS system was implemented during the Kufuor administration but was reversed by the Mills administration.
Asked by a member of the Appointments Committee of Parliament on Tuesday, 24 January what he thought about a return to the four-year system, Dr Prempeh said: “I think His Excellency must decide based upon expert advice and opinion whether we go back to three or four years, I don’t see a specific manifesto promise on that but we govern with expert opinion and expert advice and look and sense the political temperature for His Excellency to decide….”
Asked if he thought it was advisable for politicians to be taking such decisions which impinge the lives of students, the Manhyia South MP said: “Our lives are left in the hands of politicians insofar as governance is concerned and we have chosen that as a nation.”
He, however, added that: “It’s not every expert advice that politicians would have to follow verbatim, we look also [at] more than their expert opinion and we have to accept that in the democratic space, the ultimate decision makers are the political heads.”
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
