Free SHS : No teacher/union is against purchase of 'pasco' - Africa Education Watch backs gov't

The Africa Centre Education Watch says no teacher union is against government's decision of procuring four hundred thousand (400,000) sets of past questions and answers for the first batch of beneficiaries of the Free SHS policy.

His comment comes at the back of the Minority's position on government's intention to procure and distribute to the first batch of beneficiaries of the Free Senior High School policy preparing to write their final examination April next year.

The Deputy Ranking Member on the Parliamentary Committee on Education, Dr Clement Apaak has condemned government's move stating that the decision to purchase questions for final year Free SHS students saying the decision of the Ghana Education Service will compromise the integrity of the examination management body(WAEC).

Adding that government's move is out of fear the first batch of the Free SHS policy will fail their exams. He also said the move by GES will adversely affect the students’ ability to study on their own and pass their external exams.

But speaking to Starr FM, the Executive Director of Africa Education Watch Kofi Asare, disagrees with the Minority and therefore backed government's decision for the procurement of past questions

''The extent that these are past questions and teachers need past questions to prepare students adequately for the WASSCE exams and also to the extent that we have virtually the Universal free secondary education system where every ingredient that goes into teaching and learning is provided by the state then it is a non-issue within the context of our free secondary education

''If teachers say that they don't need the past questions to teach or prepare students for the exam then its an issue but I have not heard any teacher or union talking against the use of past question to prepare students for exams so I am informed that teachers normally take students through not only the past questions but the examiners report and the answering format''.

The 400,000 sets of questions and answer booklets contain possible questions that will appear in their final examination(WASSCE). The move is as part of measures to ensure that the students pass the WASSCE.

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President Akufo-Addo in a recent tour of the Eastern region charged final year students of Nkawkaw Senior High School to pass the WASSCE well to shame critics of the Free SHS policy claiming the quality of Secondary education has been compromised.

Speaking at a Speech and Prize Giving Day/Homecoming for past students of Suhum Senior High Technical School in the Eastern Region, the Director-General of Ghana Education Service, Prof. Kwasi Opoku Amankwa explained that, the decision is an additional intervention.

“Additional interventions are being put in place with the procurement of two sets of questions and answers for the schools to be used for revision. 400,000 copies that have been bought, one each is expected to be given to each student in the final year to help them in their revision. The set that each student is going to get is actually a compilation from West Africa Examination itself so it has the keys as to how to answer questions.”