Parliament proposes new 1st-yr SHS/TVET students reporting date
Parliament following the delay in the release of this year’s computer school placement has urged the Ministry of Education (MoE) to postpone the first-year second-cycle school students reporting date from December 4, 2023.
The Speaker of Parliament, Alban S. K. Bagbin, has proposed that the reopening date be shifted to the first week of January next academic year to allow both parents and teachers to prepare adequately for academic activities.
He consequently has invited the Minister in Charge of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, to appear before Parliament on Monday, December 4, 2023 to brief the House on the first-year second-cycle school reopening date and other matters.
The Speaker of Parliament proposal comes after teacher unions asked the management of the Ghana Education Service to extend the reporting date from December 4, 2023 to allow parents to prepare adequately for their ward prospectus.
The Teachers in a letter to the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, Dr Eric Nkansah said the date for the reporting of first-year students “appears not practicable because the placement and reopening dates are too close”.
“Asking form 1 students to report to school on December 4, 2023, only for them to go home again on 21 December 2023, for the Christmas holidays, will put “undue burden on students, staff, and parents,” it said.
The Unions indicated that the vacation period spanning from 21 December 2023 to 2 January 2024 “is too limited a time to offer staff members (both teaching and non-teaching) any meaningful rest”.
They therefore called on the management of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to “reconsider all these situations and effect changes to the December 4, 2023 reporting date for the 2023 BECE graduates.
The Unions are the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), the Coalition of Concerned Teachers-Ghana (CCT-GH), and the Teachers’ and Educational Workers’ Union (TEWU).
In line with the unions, the Member of Parliament for Akatsi North and Ranking Member on Education, Peter Kwasi Nortsu-Kotoe, has condemned the Ghana Education Service’s apparent rush to allow the students to go to school on Monday.
The Members of Parliament, all from the minority side expressed concern on the challenges that parents would have to go through between Thursday and Sunday to get their children ready to go to school on Monday.
They said it was incomprehensible for school placement to release just two days ago and rush students to report on Monday. The MPs said they have received calls from constituents for support and even to effect changes in their placement.
Former Education Minister and Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, on his part was emphatic that he has received calls from teachers expressing fatigue and asked that some time be given them to rest.