Semester System Was Expected to Make It Possible for Teachers to Pursue Higher Education- GES Council Chairman

According to the Chairman of the Ghana Education Service (GES) Council, Michael Nsowah, said, among other things, the system was expected to make it possible for teachers to pursue higher education to upgrade their knowledge and skills.

Speaking on Newsfile, on Saturday, Mr. Nsowah said, “the debate on this semester or trimester was such that we needed to consult a lot of people. So many things were taken into consideration and in this particular case, after meetings, we realised that we need to give the teaching fraternity the opportunity to upgrade their qualifications.”

Mr. Sowah went ahead by explaining that, during meetings with the teacher unions, it came to light that many teachers leave their classes unattended to participate in sandwich programmes they have enrolled in.

This, he stated, does not only affect teaching and learning, but teachers risk losing some part of their salary should they fail to go to class.

“So with the unions, we said ‘let us find a specific block of time when the teachers are free and can go to classes’. So we agreed with all three teacher unions on all this and that was incorporated in the timetable,” he explained.

Mr. Nsowah confirmed that with the semester system, teachers would be able to attend classes during the 10 weeks of vacation.

He continued by explaining: “So when we made the proposal of 20 weeks, you see that after 10 weeks there is a break for 10 days for the children to go and rest and come back. When we finished that calendar, there were about 10 weeks for holidays where those who have enrolled on the distance courses will be able to attend their eight-week sandwich courses.”

This comment was made after further consultation on the issue, the Honourable Minister for Education directed that the calendar for Kindergarten to Junior High School for the current academic year should be reverted to the Trimester system.

Mr. Nsowah finalized his point by stating that with the reinstatement of the trimester system and attendance being monitored closely, teachers do not have the free will to abandon classes to pursue their courses.

Source: frencheducationgh.com