The Ghana Education Service (GES) has urged cool heads among Education Unions over the semester-based academic calendar as it will not affect contact hours.
According to GES, the new system maintains the same amount of contact hours as the traditional trimester system.
The Deputy Director-General, Dr Kwabena Tandoh, disclosed this in an interview on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen.
“The Unions in Education have raised issues about the calendar but the truth is teaching hours for basic schools have always been six hours per day, which translates into 30 hours per week. Examinations and assessments take a week each term,” he explained.
Dr Tandoh, who admitted the Unions have legitimate concerns, stressed the fundamentals of their conditions of teaching have not been touched.
According to him, this is because they considered the extra activities before and after lessons to finalise the calendar.
“The contact hours is six instead of eight to afford them time for other things such as marking, preparation of lesson notes and other school activities. We’re going to have 10 weeks per session, they’ll break and then come again for another 10 sessions and have a week break and then we’ll end that semester,” he noted.
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His comments come amid backlashes from Teacher Unions over the calendar which they are calling for an immediate withdrawal.
They have argued it is not the best for basic schools in the country.
However, Dr Tandoh is optimistic there will be a headway following a meeting with the Unions on Thursday where records were set straight.