GES: Revise single-track academic calendar

It is quite obvious that the quest of stakeholders of second cycle schools, especially teachers, for the Ghana Education Service (GES) to bring back the old academic calendar as has been done at the basic education level is not possible, at least not for the 2023/2024 academic year. 

This is so because the GES is still grappling with the double-track system, and it is difficult to tell if this system will end soon.

Teachers in single-track senior high schools expect the GES to schedule the next academic year more appropriately than it did in the just-ended academic year.

It is common knowledge that the WASSCE is not written separately by single and double-track schools.

As a result, all things being equal, final-year students in both tracks will reopen at the same time. 

In the just-ended single-track calendar, SHS two students were in school from January to August with only two weeks of vacation. 

Some students from far away could not travel to their parents, because the vacation was too short.

These students have been on vacation since August and do not know when they are to reopen for the next academic year as their counterparts in double-track schools are vacating on November 30, 2023. 

This reopening uncertainty is making it difficult for both students and teachers in single-track schools to plan appropriately.

In case the next academic year starts in January, that will be four months of vacation which is not the best after they were made to learn for eight months with just two weeks of vacation only to be idle from August to December.

Dear GES, this should not be repeated, plan the single-track calendar appropriately.

Amutanga Akaninga, 
Kukua, Walewale.
E-mail: aamutanga@gmail.com