‘Double Track Placement based on Academic Excellence’

The Ministry of Education says the placement of students on either the Green or Gold Track is based on the programme the student selects and whether or not that programme is offered on a particular track.

Explaining how the placement of students in the two tracks works, the Instructional Coordinator for the Secondary Improvement Project (SIP) of the ministry, Dr K. B. Tandoh, told the Daily Graphic that the placement was done based on the availability of a particular academic programme on the track.

Dr Tandoh further explained that all the programmes had been divided into two, and the ministry had made provision for all the programmes on each of the two tracks for almost all the schools running the track system, to ensure that a student could be on either the Green or Gold Track.

Peculiar situation

However, Dr Tandoh further explained that in some of the schools, the ministry and the Ghana Education Service (GES) realised that one of the most efficient ways to run the system was to have a programme-specific track to maintain the students balance and, at the same time, ensure teacher efficiency.

On whether one could change a track, Dr Tandoh said that would depend on the peculiarity of a school which had been given the permission to move one track into the other.

He added that in a rare case where children from the same family were placed on different tracks, it was also possible for the GES to change depending on the availability of space in the programme on that track.

Equal opportunities

Dr Tandoh dismissed the allegation that one track had an advantage over the other, adding that “that is absolutely not the case because there are advantages on both tracks”.

“There are advantages for both tracks, and so there is no way the GES or the Ministry of Education or the government of Ghana will design an academic programme that will make one set of students better off than the others,” he assured.

Teacher distribution

On the distribution of the teachers on the two tracks, Dr Tandoh gave an assurance that no track would get better and experienced teachers than the other, explaining that the experienced teachers had been evenly distributed between the tracks.

“So on any track you go, you will have the experienced teachers, and then on all of the tracks, including the Form Twos and Threes, you will have some of the new teachers because we do not want to disadvantage any set of students,” he further assured.

He said the public had nothing to worry about concerning the double-track system of education because the main ingredient of doing the double track was to ensure that students had access to school and the required contact hours.

“In almost all the SHSs, programmes are offered on both tracks. However, on a small number of schools, probably less than 10 schools, the programmes had to be moved onto one track or another to achieve the highest level of efficiency.