Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum has disclosed that the government will, from 2023, begin piloting a six-year Senior High School education system.
The initiative is part of efforts to shift the country’s secondary level education from a grammar-based one to one focused on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).
“In 2023 when we open those schools, you are going to see how we are going to see six years [of] quality secondary education,” Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, told the press on Tuesday, December 14, 2021.
According to the Bosomtwe MP, the system will be piloted at 15 sites and will prove to be cost-saving once implemented.
“We have 13,000 Junior High Schools. If these reforms go on as planned, we are going to reduce to about 2,500.
“In all medium-sized communities and towns, we are going to change the space by ensuring we do an amalgamation and bring together all the Junior High Schools, put them under the same management in the same building. When you bring 12 schools together and put them under one umbrella; you have one headmaster, you can get a school bus for them, you can get a pickup for the headmaster. You can have an office manager. You have a more efficient organization,” he said.
Primary school education in the country was up to 10 years until the 1987 Education Act came into force.
The duration was however reduced to 9 years with the final three years designed as the Junior High School.
This was implemented due to the establishment of the Dzobo Committee, which led to structuring the educational content in 1974.