President Nana Akufo-Addo is optimistic results at the end of the academic year would vindicate his government’s decision to introduce the double track system at the secondary education level.
“The area to show the results, really, would be when school is over and we see the quality of products that emerge,” the President told journalists during his media encounter at the Jubilee House Wednesday, December 19.
The government took a heavy bashing at the beginning of the academic year, particularly from the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), after it took the decision to put first-year students entering the senior high schools into two tracks.
The decision, the Education Ministry maintains, is to address the infrastructural challenges brought to bear following the implementation of the Free Senior High School Policy last year.
But the President in his introductory remarks, urged Ghanaians to look beyond the challenges facing the policy as work is being done to improve the situation.
He asked: “Would we have the literate, numerate and well-trained workforce that Ghana needs to be able to compete on the world stage?”
Free SHS he noted, “gets all the headlines but I encourage you to look at other developments in the education sector.”
In addressing this issue, the president said the “government, with ingenuity and innovation, has, through the Ghana Education Trust Fund, secured a $1.5 billion facility to help develop infrastructure in our schools.”
“Parliamentary approval has been obtained, and the first tranche of this facility will be used to build more classroom blocks and dormitories in our schools to give our schools appropriate facilities to meet the demands of the 21st century.
“And, so, we are on doubletrack, and we are building the classrooms and laboratories, and gradually turning the once deprived schools into well-equipped ones. We find that paying attention to the proper management of schools means we are getting better results,” he added.