SHS students reopen today for end of semester exams

Prospective Senior High School (SHS) students across the country are expected to return to school today,  Wednesday, January 2022 to sit for their end-of-semester examinations, the Ghana Education Service (GES) has said.

Meanwhile, a committee set up by the Minister for Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum is still working on the 2022 academic year calendar and will at the appropriate time be made available to the general public and students.

The school calendar committee is chaired by the Deputy Minister for Education, Reverend Ntim Fordjour with representatives from the Ghana Education Service, NaCCA, Free SHS Secretariat, TVET service and heads of schools.

Prof Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, the Director-General of GES in an interview with the Daily Graphic newspaper said, unlike the 2021 academic calendar, the delay in the release of the 2022 academic calendar is to avoid future changes.

“The delay in the release of the 2022 academic year calendar is to ensure that we get it right this time around, and avoid some of the infractions that bedevilled the calendar during the 2021 academic year,” he told the newspaper.

Asked the actual period the much-awaiting school calendar will be out, Professor Opoku-Amankwa said his outfit and the Ministry of Education (MoE) are running the final draft by heads of schools and other stakeholders for their input.

The Director-General told the Daily Graphic the need for the school calendar committee has become necessary due to the addition of more Technical, Vocational and Education Training (TVET) schools to the Free SHS programme.

“This is for the Ministry of Education (MoE) to reconcile and have a workable calendar that took into consideration all those Technical, Vocational and Education Training (TVET) institutions,” the Education Service official stated on Monday.

He noted that the outbreak of Covid which made students stay home for almost a year disrupted the learning system and thus the need to have a calendar that takes into consideration the lost time so that we can catch up.

“Additionally, the calendar that we are drawing also looks beyond 2022 to 2023 and 2024 to see how we can gradually come back to the school calendar year, which ends in June/July and starts in September/October,” Mr Opoku added.

The leadership of the Ghana National Council of Private Schools (GNACOPS) on its part has said all private schools in the country will resume school on Tuesday January 11, 2022 to continue academic activities for this year.

READ: JHS 2022 First Semester Scheme of Work (JHS 1-3) – Download Now

Mr Enoch Gyetuah, the National Executive Director for the Private Schools Council speaking to EducationWeb.com.gh late last year urged heads of private schools to comply with the GNACOPS 2022 academic year calendar.

SHS students reopen today for end-of-semester exams but the full academic calendar is yet to be released.

Source: Educationweb.com.gh