Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), has called for broader consultation on the implementation of the new academic calendar by the Ministry of Education. In a document made available to the Ghana News Agency in Tema, EduWatch called on the Ghana Education Service, GES, and the Ministry of Education to engage in broader consultation in taking such a landmark decision.
The Education Think Tank cautioned that the culture of confusing information with consultation in the education sector must stop. It argued that critical systemic decisions like permanently changing a three-term academic calendar system that predates independence should not be left for the GES and the Education Ministry alone.
The EduWatch document signed by its Executive Director Kofi Asare explained that the three years versus four years Senior High School duration tango which affected the education system during the era of former President John Agyekum Kufuor’s administration and that of late President John Evans Atta-Mills must be a reminder of the relevance of building broad stakeholder consensus on a key systemic decision.
The Organization contended that though it appreciates the need to harmonize the pre-tertiary calendar, the semester system cannot be used as a yardstick for harmonization since it is only an impromptu measure that has emerged out of the Double Track system challenge the government is working to fix through various SHS infrastructural expansion interventions.
The GES on Friday, January 14, 2022, announced that all public basic schools will begin the 2022 academic year on January 18, 2021. The first semester from KG to JHS will begin from January 18 until June 9, 2022, with a mid-semester break from April 12 to 18, 2022, while the second semester will begin from July 26, 2022, to December 16, 2022, to end the academic year.
Mid-Semester break in new academic calendar
However, there will be a Mid-Semester break from September 30 to October 9, 2022. Also, all SHS Two and One students who are currently in school to write the end-of-second-semester examinations are expected to come home on January 28 and return to school on February 7 to begin the new academic year in new forms – SHS Three and Two.
Additionally, prospective SHS One students who are awaiting the release of their Basic Education Certificate Examination results by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) are expected to begin their first semester of the academic year on April 4, 2022.
