The government’s intention to extend secondary education to 6 years which is a laudable idea has either been improperly communicated or misinterpreted.
The idea of ensuring that secondary education is 6 years has been interpreted by many to mean 6 years of Senior High School education. There is a big difference between making secondary education 6 years and making Senior High School education 6 years.
The 6-Year Secondary Proposal related to making secondary education 6 years (JHS to SHS) combined as SHS and not keep students at the Basic school for another 3 years after basic 6.
It will interest you as a reader to know that, across Africa, Ghana is the only country with a three-year Secondary Education which is not helping our learners.
Nigeria has a 6-year secondary education. All other countries have between 5 and 7 years of Secondary Education in Africa. This is a clear indication that Ghana’s current structure has a problem.
This is one of the reasons why candidates put forth for the WASSCE each year by Nigeria perform cumulatively far better than Ghana since they have six years to prepare for the WASSCE. Note that a six-year secondary education DOES NOT MEAN 3 years JHS plus 6 years SHS.
Per the current system, we compel learners in SHS to crump so much of the same curriculum in 3 years, whiles a Nigerian student will take 6 years to study the same curriculum. The extra three remaining years of secondary education have been shifted to Junior High School where the learners are compelled to learn the basic curriculum hence when they get to the Secondary school proper, they will have less than 3 years to cover the curriculum for the WASSCE.
An IMF conditionality led to the cutting down of costs on education at the secondary level effective in the 1990s. It led to the current three years of secondary education. Ghana had to alter its seven-year secondary education system to meet the IFM conditionality to cut down on expenditure on education, which brought us to where we are today. The 7-year education system Ghana altered covered Form 1 to Form 5, followed by the upper six
The reality is that Ghana currently has a six-year secondary education, which has been split into three years at the Junior High School level and another Two and a half to three years at the Senior High School. The remaining one year of the 7-year secondary education was thrown away. Technically, the Junior High School system is not part of Secondary Education in Ghana but part of the basic school, for which reason the JHS is located at the premises of basic schools.
For the current JHS to be converted back to secondary education to make secondary education 6 years, the JHS must be moved to the Senior High Schools in Ghana, which will place their management and students under the Senior High School leadership.
This controversy was demystified during an Action Aid Ghana-sponsored training programme dubbed Alliance Building Workshop on Tax Justice. The workshop shared with participants issues regarding tax justice and education financing to build a common understanding of the links between tax and education, as well as the capacity of participants who will be enlightened.
If this new secondary education reform sees the light of day, the current SHS curriculum will have to be altered again to reflect the new 6-Year Secondary Education Proposal. This will pave the way for Ghana to start the new 6-year programme however, this will be piloted to measure its effectiveness in some selected schools ahead of nationwide implementation.
To ensure the success of the introduction of the 6-year programme, the government and policymakers will have to deal with systemic challenges.
The government is considering several alternatives. Per the information available, the government plans to build one modern Junior High School for every 12 basic schools within a given catchment area. These new modern Junior High Schools will have modern science labs and IT-related resources. This means after basic school, learners will have to proceed to the new Junior High Schools and not the current ones located in the basic schools.
Again, the government seeks to ensure that these modern JHSs benefit from the school management systems of the nearest SHSs, their science and IT labs among others.
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One easy approach to this will mean building the JHS, which will become part of the secondary education within an SHS premises. This will mean, there will no longer be a need for BECE.
Ghanaeducation.org will keep readers updated with more updated as we add more relevant information to this article in the coming days.