A former Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Charles Aheto Tsegah, has blamed the naked confusion in the education sector on the Minister of Education, accusing him of interfering with the work of the implementing agency; the Ghana Education Service (GES).
In the view of Aheto Tsegah, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, is having difficulties at the Education Ministry, because he won’t allow the GES work.
This comes after the government reversed its new semester-based academic calendar system and reinstated the trimester system as contained in a statement on Friday, January 21, 2022.
Reacting to this on the Key Points on TV3/3FM Saturday January 22, Mr Aheto-Tsegah, said “there was no indication that the change had been thought through. The other challenge is the fact that we seem to be doing this round and round in circles, repeating our old mistakes when it comes to education.
“One would have thought that by now, we would have progressed and we would have been smart to look at all the challenges in the past and do things in a very proper way bit it looks like we haven’t actually learned from our history. I am happy that it has all come to a god end trimester is back, Mr Aheto-Tsegah said.
The reversal, has since been hailed by others including the Education think tank, Africa Education Watch, which has asked the Ghana Education Service (GES) to channel its energies towards addressing challenges in the sector rather than introducing policies such as the semester system at the Basic to Senior High School level.
The introduction of the semester-based academic calendar for basic schools including Kindergarten, and Junior High School was met with resistance by some stakeholders in the educational sector.
Many argued that they were not consulted.
After several debates and discussions, the government has gone back to the old trimester system.
A statement announcing the reversal of the semester system said: “The Minister has received representation from a section of the public and key educational stakeholders to reinstate the Trimester system.
“After further consultation on the issue, the Honourable Minister for Education has directed that the calendar for Kindergarten to Junior High School for the current academic year should revert to the Trimester system.”
The second term commences 10th May and ends on 18th August, 2022, while the third term will span 13th September to 22nd December, 2022
In an interview with Citi News, however, the Executive Director of the think tank, Kofi Asare described the decision as welcoming but hurriedly indicated that there is no need for a change in the status quo following the lack of consultation.
“The decision to revert to the trimester system is a good one. There was no need to move to a semester system because there was no flaw in the trimester system which was not surmountable. So, going back to where it came from, obviously, is the best thing to do. I believe that the lesson from this in developing this policy will have to be building consensus among the parties involved”.
The government went back on its earlier directive for basic schools to run a semester-based academic calendar.
The directive for basic schools, including Kindergarten, and Junior High School to change the trimester-based calendar to a semester-based one last week, was received with controversy with many teacher unions kicking against it.
Many of them were not enthused that the government had not engaged them on such a major switch, although the government insisted that it had held extensive consultations with them.
Some of the education workers vowed to resist the directive and called for its withdrawal.
After hesitating initially, the government has now decided to reverse the decision.
The Ministry of Education in the statement indicated that the decision was taken after engagements with various education stakeholders and the conclusion was to reinstate the trimester system.
Consequently, the first term starts on January 18 to 14th April 2022. The second term commences 10th May and ends on 18th August 2022, while the third term will span 13th September to 22nd December 2022.
On the eve of reopening of schools across the country, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the National Assocaition of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), the Coalition of Concenerd teachers, Ghana (CCT-GH) and the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) – forming the Unions in Education – kicked against the semester move citing no knowledge about the decision.
“Such a major policy change should have attracted a wide consultation and therefore find both the pronouncement and the document offensive and takes exception to them,” they had said.
On Friday, January 21, a statement issued by the Ministry of Education and signed by Press Secretary Felix Baidoo said: “After further consultation on the issue, the Honourable Minister for Education has directed that the calendar for kindergarten to Junior High School for the current academic year should revert to the Trimester system.”
As a result, the first term will run for 12 weeks from Tuesday, January 18 to Thursday, April 14. There will be about three weeks of vacation ahead of the second term, which begins from Tuesday, May 10 till Thursday, August 18.
The final term will run from Tuesday, September 13 to Thursday, December 22.
The GES on Thursday, January 13 announced new dates for reopening of public schools from kindergarten to senior high schools.
Mr Aheto-Tsegah reiterated “…I am very concerned that one year loss should result in a change in our academic structure when there are countries around us who also suffered the same closed to one year loss and stuck to their old system. So change in the semester system was not a real solution to learning recovery. I am happy the Ministry and the GES have been able to do this.
“This is the job of the Ghana Education Service and if the Minister had allowed the Ghana Education Service, probably, he [Referring to the spokesperson of the Ministry] would have been sitting here making the point. Now the Minister is trying to do the job of the GES and therefore he is confronted with all of these challenges and he is caught up with it, he can’t explain because he is not in the GES, if he had allowed the GES to do what their core business is, which is to coordinate the education system, all of these things wouldn’t have come, then the Ministry would have been the arbiter in this matter, all of us would have come to him to say Mr Minister, this is what the GES is doing.
“But now the Minister is himself running the show. A lot of these things are emanated from the Ministry not from the GES.”
But responding to him, the spokseprson of the Ministry of Education, Kwasi Kwarteng said there had been strutral changes at the Ministry which Mr Aheto-Tsetgah is unaware of.
“I understand the difficultly of Mr Tsegah trying to state how the structural work at the Ministry of Education is with these agencies because it has been long he left .
“There has been some level of structural reforms. Today, we do not have the GES alone taking such technical crucial decisions. Currently the president has commissioned the TVET service which will be responsible for Technical Vocational education.”
