Teacher unions call on GES, MoE to revise ‘Covid-19’ SHS calendar

Teacher unions in the country have engaged the Ghana Education Service (GES) under the auspices of the Ministry of Education (MoE) to realign the Senior High School (SHS) calendar with that of basic school.

The union’s call comes after the management of Ghana Education Service in a statement shared with AcademicWeek said the 2023/2024 academic year for pre-tertiary school has been reversed to the pre-Covid-19 period.

Ending the third term for basic schools on Thursday, September 14, 2023. The Ghana Education Service indicated in the press release that the first term of the 2023/2024 academic year reopening date for basic schools is October 3, 2023.

The Deputy Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) in Charge of Quality and Assessment, Dr Kwabena Tandoh in a statement said the new academic year start date is to bring the academic calendar back to pre-COVID-19.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic, the General Secretary of Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU), Mark Denkyira Korankye said that the unions were working with GES on how to re-align the first and second-cycle school calendars.

He said, for instance, the meeting with the GES — called about two weeks ago — was for the stakeholders to see how “they can fit the senior high school system into this one so that there would be a reconciled programme”.

Mr Korankye explained that the unions had always been pushing for the reversal to the pre-COVID-19 programme so that the academic calendar could begin in September or October in order that schools would have their long vacation from July the following year.

“The teacher unions have always been pushing that we revert to the pre-COVID era schedule so we know that from September or October, the academic year is beginning and then end in June, and then we know there is a long vacation for children to have a rest.

“This time, what we are experiencing is that you break for two weeks, and then you are called to come back.

Meanwhile, parents are also suffering because they can’t plan as they have to go and pay school fees again for yet another term.

We have sat through with management and have discussed it, and we think that we should restructure it so that we go back to that old system, where the academic year begins from September-October and ends in June-July,” he said.