By Iddi Yire
Accra, May 14, GNA – President John Dramani Mahama has announced that the Government will phase out the “double track” educational system by 2027.
The “double track” system in Ghana is an educational model introduced in 2018 to manage overcrowding in Senior High Schools (SHS) caused by the Free SHS policy.
It splits the student population into two alternating batches (e.g. Gold and Green), where one group studies while the other is on vacation.
The President made the announcement when he formally commissioned a state-of-the-art Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography (PET-CT) scan for cancer diagnosis and treatment at the Sweden Ghana Medical Centre (SGMC) in Accra.
PET-CT scan is an advanced imaging test that combines metabolic and structural information to accurately diagnose and monitor diseases like cancer.
SGMC, a state-of- the-art oncology Centre and the leading cancer care provided in West Africa was acquired by the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) in 2020.
President Mahama disclosed that the Government had secured a $300 million facility from the World Bank to upgrade 50 senior high schools nationwide.
The core objective of the project dubbed: “Secondary Education Transformation for Access, Relevance, and Results for Jobs (STARR-J)” is to expand educational access, improve teaching quality, and better align high school learning outcomes with real-world job markets.
“Under this project, 30 category C Senior High Schools will be upgraded to category B. And 20 category B schools will be upgraded to category A.” The President said.
President Mahama said this strategic investment was not simply about expanding; saying “it is fundamentally about promoting equity, improving quality and widening opportunities for every Ghanaian child”.
He said the STARR-J project would also operationalise the community day school concepts.
He said new E-blocks were going to be built in urban and pre-urban communities, adding that these were going to be community day schools to be built in urban communities where it would be easy for the children to commute to school and back.
President Mahama said this would help them ease the pressure on boarding facilities and expand access to quality secondary education closer to urban families.
He said beyond access, the project places strong emphasis on improving quality across all senior high schools, including technical and vocational education and training institutions to ensure that education aligns with skills requirements of a modern competitive economy.
The President said as part of this initiative, all teachers in the nation’s secondary schools would benefit from continuous professional development programmes designed to sharpen their skills and improve classroom effectiveness.
President Mahama said these programmes would equip teachers with 25th-century competencies, including digital literacy, critical thinking, innovative pedagogical approaches, artificial intelligence integration, and learner-centered teaching.
“Our objective is clear to ensure that every teacher is not only well qualified, but also continuously empowered to deliver relevant high-quality education that prepares our young people, not merely for examinations, but for life, work, innovation, and national development”.
He said through STARR-J, they were laying the foundation for a more inclusive resilience and future-ready secondary education system in Ghana.
He said the STARR-J project would assist the government to achieve its targets of bringing an end to double track in the nation’s secondary school system by next year.
“By 2027, there should be no secondary school implementing a double track system in Ghana.” President Mahama stated to give teachers the time to rest and also prepare their notes and all their teaching and learning material.
GNA
Edited by Linda Asante Agyei