A lecturer at the Presbyterian University College (PUC) in Abetifi Kwahu, Martin Adombire has taken a swipe at the newly introduced Semester – based academic calendar, describing it as burden that will ripple in more pressure on the teacher – student daily routines.
The lecturer’s comments comes on the banter between the teacher – unions, the GES and the ministry of education after teachers in the educational sector accused the GES and the ministry for not involving stakeholders including the teacher – unions to the drafting and implementation of the 2022 academic calendar.
In an in studio discussion with Kwame Koranteng on Anɔpa Dawuro on Republic FM, he said, the new changes being made by the education minister to introduce the American – form of educational planning has no basis to hold in the country.
According to him, he does not know what propelled the education ministry to propagate such changes, which to him, he is struggling to understand the changes.
He said, with the semester system is quite long, which is going to have a negative cognitive effect on the school children because they are young. Furthermore, he said, with the SHS, it will be disastrous because the enrollment has increased.
“Kwame the semester system is quite long, and this is going to have a negative effect on the children because they’re young. But notwithstanding, the SHS level will disastrous because of the free senior high school, the enrollment has increased. What I see is that, it’s going to put more pressure on the teachers and the teaching and learning materials”
Additionally, he said, what informed the new academic calendar must be interrogated, going forward. He said, as it stands now, there’s no written policy document on the implementation, which usually brings agitations between government and the teachers.
According to him, with such policy, there must be a written policy document so that all stakeholders can buy into it. Meanwhile the GES says its holding talks with the stakeholders to address the issues but the meetings far, as reported by some newspapers has proved futile.
