The Ghana Education Service (GES) has silenced its critics by releasing reopening dates for the 2022 academic year from Kindergarten to SHS3.
The dates have been approved by the Minister of Education, Yaw Osei Adutwum, upon recommendation of the Ministerial Committee on Schools Calendar, said a statement announcing the reopening schedules.
Per the reopening dates, Basic Schools KG 1-2, Primary 1-6 and JHS 1-3 are scheduled to resume school on Tuesday, January 18, 2022.
For the second cycle level, a tentative date of Monday, April 4, 2022, has been set for SHS1 students to resume studies.
However, SHS 2 and SHS3 students have been scheduled to reopen on Monday, February 7, 2022.
Deputy Ranking Member on Education Committee of Parliament, Dr Clement Apaak, has been one of the fierce critics of the GES for the delay in releasing the reopening dates for schools.
He cited severe challenges with Ghana’s education for the delay.
According to him, parents do not know exactly when public basic schools will reopen whereas private basic schools reopened on Monday, January 10, 2022.
“44,000 teachers out of 284,000 Basic school teachers left the teaching profession in 2021 alone. This is 15%, the highest in 20 years. Why did they walk away from the classroom, and how soon will they be replaced? he quizzed in a Facebook post on Monday.
He continued: “Capitation Grant is in arrears for Four Tranches (2 each for 2019/2020 & 2020/2021 academic years). And because of this, Heads borrowed in order to keep the schools running because that’s the only source of income to Basic schools. When will the arrears be paid?”