Double Track SHS List Out

As part of plans by government to successfully rollout its much anticipated double track system, a list containing the names of senior high schools expected to be captured under the yet-to-happen initiative, has been released.

The government through the Ministry of Education (MoE) had earlier announced its decision to begin a new enrollment system that would mitigate the challenges encountered by the free senior high school (FSHS) programme.

After its implementation in September last year, the FSHS had been laden with numerous pitfalls including congested dormitories and high-class sizes of up to 160 students―negatively affecting teaching and learning.

Studies conducted had also revealed that though woefully inadequate, most students did not receive the full set of nine exercise books and four note books required for to last a whole academic year.

For these reasons and more, the MoE has selected 400 out of the 696 public SHSs to run the double-track programme.

According to the education minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, these schools would be obliged to enrol on the double intake system.

He said the measure was temporal and meant to solve an acute problem and to make sure that no qualified Ghanaian child is left out.

In the list that was circulated on social media over the weekend, the double intake would bring the total of newly proposed enrollment to 387, 592 students, with 193,796 as the total double intake per track.

Based on last year’s enrolment, the government projects that enrolment figures for 2018 would be at 472,730 against available seats of 290,737― leaving a gap of 181, 993.

But the MoE says the double track would help in ensuring that the existing gap is filled.

Break down

The list revealed the Ashanti region would rake in the highest intake with 79 schools on the double track with the Eastern and Central regions following with 60 and 45 SHS respectively.

While Greater Accra enrolls 42 schools under the system, Brong Ahafo and Western regions will enroll 41 and 34 SHS separately.

The rest are Northern Region, 33; Volta Region, 28; Upper East, 19 and Upper West at the lowest with 18 schools.

Every school is expected to have at most, a capacity of 3000 students with each class year absorbing at most 1000 students.

By: Grace Ablewor Sogbey/ [email protected]