Unions in Education reject semester system, call for broader consultation

Unions in Education, a coalition of teachers and educational workers unions, has called on the Ghana Education Service (GES) to withdraw the semester system with the introduction of the new school’s calendar.

The group, in a press release, made available to the Ghana News Agency, said the GES did not consult stakeholders in the educational sector before deciding on a change from the trimester to the semester academic calendar and asked the Service to reconsider the decision.

According to the Group, such a major policy change should have attracted a wide consultation before its intended rollout in schools.

“The Unions in Education sees the decision taken to unilaterally change the school calendar into a semester one as arbitrary and an imposition by the GES on major stakeholders of, which the Unions in Education are part.”

It said the thorough discussion would bring to the fore the effects of a long school calendar on both teaching and learning and also on the health of both workers and learners.

The Group said the hours workers in Education required to work per day and per week had been a bother to them, especially, when instructional and working hours had been increased unilaterally without discussions and negotiations.

The Group is made up of the Ghana National Association of Teachers, National Graduate Association of Teachers, Teachers and Educational Workers Union and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers Ghana.

The Ghana Education Service has released a new schools calendar for 2022, which contains the reopening and vacations of schools in the country.

Per the calendar, Kindergartens through to Junior High Schools will be in session from January 18 to June 9, 2022, for the first semester, with a mid-semester break from April 12 to April 18, 2022.

The second semester will begin from July 26, 2022, to December 16, 2022, with a mid-semester break from September 30 to October 9, 2022.

The release said Senior High School (SHS) One and Two students who went to school on January 5, 2022, to write their end-of-second-semester examinations, would break on January 28 and resume on February 7, 2022, to commence a new academic year as SHS Two and Three students.

Students who wrote their Basic Education Certificate Examination last year in 2021 are expected to start the first semester of their first academic year on April 4, 2022.