Double track remuneration
As long as you keep your mind clearly focused on the goal that you want to accomplish, you will achieve that goal. TRACY BRIAN.
A number of well-meaning Ghanaians, including clergymen have commented on the double track intake system that will become operational next September in some of our Senior High Schools.
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In particular the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church of Ghana, the Most Rev Titus Awotwe Pratt, has admonished the government not to be defensive, but open about discourse on the double track intake into some of the Senior High Schools.
The President on his part has given an assurance that the quality of education will not be compromised because of the double track.
What is required is proper focus.
It means the readiness of the government to provide the necessary inputs both human and material to ensure the success of the programme.
Peter F .Drucker has noted that “Effective leadership is not about making speeches nor being liked, leadership is defined by the results not attributes.”
Harold J.Seymour has also posited that “Leaders are the ones who keep faith with the past, keep step with the present and keep the promise to posterity”.
That is what we expect to see about the kind of leadership that Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo will bring to bear on the implementation of the double track intake and the free SHS policy in general.
Definitely funding the free senior high school programme will not be cheap, especially the double track system but then there is no substitute to education.
That is what some have said, if you think education is expensive, try illiteracy. That is what sums up the position of John Stuart Mills that any nation that dwarfs its citizens is bound to fail because with small men, no great achievement would ever be attained.
Indeed, the need to do everything to ensure the fullest education of all citizens might have informed Benjamin Franklin, one of the notable statesmen of the United States of America to proffer that,” If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
It is in this wise that I would want to offer a viewpoint about remuneration for teachers who would be involved in teaching both streams when the system takes off.
It is important that when policies are developed, especially functional ones they are sustained.
There is too much of embarking on policies that prove effective but which are abandoned midstream only to create a problem in the future.
In 1981, I did my national service at Asankrangwa Secondary School (ASANCO) in the Western Region. I decided to opt for ASANCO against Osei Kyeretwie Secondary School (OKESS) in Kumasi.
I studied for my General Certificate of Education Ordinary level between 1970 and 1975 at OKESS and did the Sixth Form at ASANCO.
In Form Five, we lost our Biology Master but because OKESS was in Kumasi, it was not too difficult to get part time teachers.
However, when I went to ASANCO, when we lost our Geography Master in Lower Sixth, we had to travel to Tarkwa Secondary School on weekends for classes taught by the assistant headmaster of that