WASSCE results prove double track is effective

Mrs Gifty Twum Ampofo, the Deputy Minister for Education in charge of Technical and Vocational Education and Training, says results from the 2021 West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) have proven the effectiveness of the double-track system introduced by Government in 2018 to address overcrowding in schools.

Mrs Twum Ampofo, who is also the Member of Parliament for Abuakwa North Constituency, said with the introduction of the Free Senior High School and the double-track system, students stayed in school for 16 weeks in a semester, with the two semesters in the year giving students 32 weeks.

She said teaching hours were also increased by an hour, describing the track as “very effective.”

“So, the number of period students have to be in school for learning was increased from 1034 to 1184. This means an increase in quality teacher-student contact hours. This made the hours of teaching increased”, she added.

Many people had criticised the double-track system with its red, gold and green streams, saying it would undermine quality education.

Mrs Twum Ampofo stressed that the increased teaching hours made it possible for the final year students to get help from the teachers to address their shortfalls as they stayed in school to prepare for their final examination.

She stated that the double-track system had produced an average of 60 per cent pass mark of the core subjects in the 2021 WASSCE as compared to the results of 2015 and 2016 where the students scored 40.93 per cent and 46.9 per cent respectively.

Additionally, she said the first batch of the Free Senior High School also recorded a 60 per cent pass mark of the core subjects.

“If averagely Free SHS has produced 60 per cent of the performance in the core subjects and the Free SHS with the double track has also produced 60 per cent score in the core subjects, then we can say that the Free SHS has not destroyed Ghana’s Education system but rather has helped to facilitate the educational system”, she asserted.

The Deputy Minister noted that the introduction of the Free SHS policy in 2017 had increased enrolment from 880,000 to 1.2 million students.

“If you put all the results together to strike the average within a very small range, you would say that all the students did well in the exams. The system for teaching as well as the teachers performed very well”, she stated.