Double Tracking System: Prof Adei tells Critics to Shut Up

A former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Professor Stephen Adei, has asked those against the multi-track system, expected to be introduced into the Senior High School system in September this year, to ‘shut up’.

According to him, the policy is the smartest solution to addressing the challenges that come with free secondary education in the country.

“I see the double tracking system as the most ingenious, sensible way of giving quality education. Those opposing should bring their solutions on board or shut up instead of criticizing” he said on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen Monday.

A total of 362,118 first-year students from public Senior High Schools across the country are currently benefiting from the government’s fee-free education policy since its inception.

Of the figure, 117,692 are day students with 244,426 being boarders.

Based on last year’s enrollment, government has projected enrollment figures for 2018 to stand at 472,730 against available seats of 290, 737 leaving a gap of 181, 993 to be created in order to accommodate the expected number of enrollment.

The double-tracking system, according to the Ministry of Education, would offer students more instructional and contact hours with teachers.

But some institutions, including Policy think tank, IMANI Africa, has described as needless government’s decision to introduce the system.

Professor Adei, however, thinks the proposal is spot on as it hoped to solve the problem of overcrowding in the schools.

He argued that the system was so good that government should have come up with the idea long ago, instead of allowing overcrowding to mar the first year of the Free SHS implementation.

Former Education Minister under the Mahama NDC government, Professor Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang, has also appealed to the government to, as a matter of urgency, make documents relating to the double-track or semester system available for public scrutiny.

Speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen yesterday, Professor Opoku Agyemang said making the documents public would help shape the discourse.

“We can’t jump onto the fray when the policy document which will spell out how this programme will be run isn’t shared with the public. It will help in knowing what the policy is about and, to a large extent, help us predict it’s outcome,” she said.

Education Minister, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh, made the revelation at a sensitisation programme organised for education directors of heads of senior high school and public relation officers in the education sector on Saturday, July 21.

The double-track year-round system, the education ministry says, puts students and staff into two different tracks so that while one track is in school, the other is on vacation.

The rotation sequence will depend on the year-round calendar being used. In Ghana, the school calendar has three different terms. The first term is from September to December, the second term starts in January and ends in April while the third term is from April/May to July.

But the former Minister, who was Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, wants the government to proceed with caution by consulting stakeholders in education.