A Deputy Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Adutwum, has stressed the need to avoid a backlog of students in schools even as COVID-19 has disrupted academic calendars.
He made this in defence of the government’s insistence that Ghana must hold the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) this year.
Some 400,000 final year Senior High School students returned to school on June 22 and since then, at least 110 COVID-19 cases in 34 schools had so far been recorded.
Despite the concerns of increased COVID-19 infection, Dr. Adutwum stressed that “the government is not taking this lightly.”
These concerns have prompted the government to set up a committee to monitor the COVID-19 situation in Senior High Schools.
The Deputy Minister also noted that a backlog of students at various educational levels needed to be avoided so that planning for the sector is not altered.
“The government has to grapple with getting the final years at various levels to move on so we can create space at the lower ranks for another group to come in.”
“Without getting the JHS 3 students to move on, you cannot even plan towards the basic school because the kindergarten students are going to be waiting to get in.”
Dr. Adutwum added that the “same thing applies to the universities where you need to have first-year students.”
“It is almost like you are removing this group so you can prevent clogging so you can even think about KG going to school otherwise there will be no KG 1. Others will be backlogged behind the gate and that will make the whole planning process very complicated,” he explained.
