Dr. Kwabena Tandoh, the Deputy Director-General for Quality and Access of Ghana Education Service, has reiterated that the semester calendar for basic schools is here to stay and it will benefit busy parents to balance their work and parenting.
This was revealed when he was interviewed by Bernard Avle on the Citi Breakfast Show.
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Basic Schools New Semester Calendar
The Ghana Education Service revealed on 13th January, 2022 that KG/Primary and JHS were all going to run a 2 Semester calendar for the academic year.
Hence, for the next academic year, Primary schools ar3 going to spend 21 weeks each for the two Semesters within the year.
Each Semester has been scheduled for a one week mid-sem break. This results in the official academic weeks reduced to 20 weeks each semester.
Hence, Primary schools will now spend 20 weeks for academic work in each Semester and 40 weeks in total for the academic year.
Dr. Kwabena Tandoh’s View on the Semester Calendar
The Deputy Director-General for Ghana Education Service spoke on Citi TV on 17th January, 2022 on the reasons behind the Semester-based academic calendar.
Dr. Tandoh explained that the semester calendar will benefit teachers when they want to pursue further studies to upgrade themselves.
He explained that this semester-based calendar will allign itself with the University systems which will in turn benefit teachers who pursue degree and Masters programme in the various Tertiary institutions.
He further added that this semester calendar was necessary because the previous academic calendar saw both JHS and KG/Primary run a different system which didn’t help parents and also saw learners attendance drop by eleven percent (11%).
Dr. Tandoh, in turn, indicated that the Semester-based academic calendar is “here to stay.“
“It is the new normal. We are not just introducing it to align only the timetables at the various levels.”
Additionally, Dr. Tandoh is of the view that the semester system will go a long way to benefit and relieve busy parents or guardians of the pressure of balancing their parenting and work life.
Source: Citinewsroom