We need consensus on academic calendar

At long last, the 2022 academic calendar for pre-tertiary schools has been released and all public basic schools reopened last Tuesday for the commencement of academic work.

According to the calendar, all senior high school (SHS) forms One and Two students who are currently wrapping up their end-of-year examinations are expected to vacate on January 28, 2022 and return to school to begin the first semester of SHS Two and Three, respectively, on February 7, 2022.

The 2021 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates who are awaiting the outcome of the examination to enable them to pursue secondary education will report to school on the tentative date of April 4, 2022, depending on the release of the results by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC).

The release of the calendar has surely calmed down the nerves of all stakeholders who, until its release, could not tell when schools would reopen.

Much as we are happy that the calendar is out, we feel strongly that the management of education in the country must sit up and work to ensure that parents, guardians, pupils, students and all stakeholders in the sector are not taken through such traumatic experience again.

It is important that schools, parents, guardians, students and pupils know in advance when the next semester or academic year begins to make for good planning and projections.

In that vein, we urge the ministerial committee to release the calendar for 2023 and 2024 in good time, as we have been promised.

We acknowledge the fact that the calendar has been greeted with strong reactions from a section of educational stakeholders, who feel that asking basic schools to run a semester system is improper because of the long spell of time the pupils will have to be in school, unlike the trimester system.

The teacher unions and some parents think that introducing Kindergarten (KG) children to a semester system, is not feasible, taking into consideration the retention rate of such children.

We find it surprising when the teacher unions accuse the GES of unilaterally changing the school calendar from a trimester to a semester system to cover pupils from KG to the JHS level because we believe the calendar is the outcome of the ministerial committee.

The Daily Graphic believes that in matters of national concerns, such as education, it is important that citizens are given a clear picture of the reality on the ground.

For instance, the teacher unions in their protest, quoted the contact hours to be eight hours, i.e. 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m, with the other options being from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

However, the academic calendar as presented, a copy of which is in the possession of the Daily Graphic says nothing has changed and so, it remains six hours plus one hour break each day, implying that school either begins 7.30am to 2.30pm or 8am to 3pm.

We are surprised, even the more, that the teacher unions are saying that they were not consulted because, we were informed by the sector minister, that a ministerial committee had been set up, made up of teachers and headmasters selected from across the country, as well as other stakeholders.

There is the need for further clarification on the implications of this semester system.

We believe that it is not too late to revisit the calendar with the relevant stakeholders, while the children are in school, in order to arrive at an acceptable calendar for the sake of the future of the children. They cannot continue to stay at home while this back and forth goes on, for the child cannot wait.

The Daily Graphic believes that clearly, consensus building is crucial at this level and that is why we see the move by the GES to meet with the teacher unions on the issue today as reassuring.

The education of our children is paramount and nothing should stand in their way.