A Former Dircetor of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Charles Aheto Tsegah, has accused the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum of interfering with the work of the Ghana Education Service (GES).
In his view, Dr Adutwum is having difficulties at the Education Ministry because of his interference with the work of the GES.
His comments come after the Minister had directed that the academic calendar of public schools be reverted from the semester system to the trimester system.
The dates implied that all basic schools would run a semester system, a decision which came as a surprise to major teacher unions.
Therefore, on the eve of reopening of schools across the country, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the National Assocaition of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), the Coalition of Concenerd teachers, Ghana (CCT-GH) and the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) – forming the Unions in Education – kicked against the move citing no knowledge about the decision.
“Such a major policy change should have attracted a wide consultation and therefore find both the pronouncement and the document offensive and takes exception to them,” they had said.
On Friday, January 21, a statement issued by the Ministry of Education and signed by Press Secretary Felix Baidoo said: “After further consultation on the issue, the Honourable Minister for Education has directed that the calendar for kindergarten to Junior High School for the current academic year should revert to the Trimester system.”
As a result, the first term will run for 12 weeks from Tuesday, January 18 to Thursday, April 14.
There will be about three weeks of vacation ahead of the second term, which begins from Tuesday, May 10 till Thursday, August 18.
The final term will run from Tuesday, September 13 to Thursday, December 22.
The GES on Thursday, January 13 announced new dates for reopening of public schools from kindergarten to senior high schools.
Reacting to this on the Key Points on TV3/3FM Saturday January 22, Mr Aheto-Tsegah said “There was no indication that the change had been thought through. The other challenge is the fact that we seem to be doing this round and round in circles, repeating our old mistakes when it comes to education.
“One would have thought that by now, we would have progressed and we would have been smart to look at all the challenges in the past and do things in a very proper way bit it looks like we haven’t actually learned from our history. I am happy that it has all come to a god end trimester is back.
“But I am very concerned that one year loss should result in a change in our academic structure when there are countries around us who also suffered the same closed to one year loss and stuck to their old system. So change in the semester system was not a real solution to learning recovery. I am happy the the Ministry and the GES have been able to do this.
“This is the job of the Ghana Education Service and if the Minister had allowed the Ghana Education Service, probably, he [Referring to the spokesperson of the Ministry] would have been sitting here making the point. Now the Minister is trying to do the job of the GES and therefore he is confronted with all of these challenges and he is caught up with it, he can’t explain because he is not in the GES, if he had allowed the GES to do what their core business is, which is to coordinate the education system, all of these things wouldn’t have come, then the Ministry would have been the arbiter in this matter, all of us would have come to him to say Mr Minister, this is what the GES is doing.
“But now the Minister is himself running the show. A lot of these things are emanated from the Ministry not from the GES.”
But responding to him, the spokseprson ofthe Ministry of Education, Kwasi Kwarteng said there had been strutral changes at the Ministry which mr Aheto-Tsetgah is unaware of.
“I understand the difficultly of Mr Tsegah trying to state how the structural work at the Ministry of Education is with these agencies because it has been long he left .
“There has been some level of structural reforms. Today, we do not have the GES alone taking such technical crucial decisions. Currently the president has commissioned the TVET service which will be responsible for Technical Vocational education.”
By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana