The Member of Parliament (MP) for the Assin South Constituency, Rev. Ntim Fordjour, has rejected claims by fellow MP, for Tamale North Constituency, Alhaji Suhuyini Alhassan, that the newly adopted double-intake system for the Free SHS programme is the same as a shift system.

Rev. Ntim Fordjour said the Dual-Intake system is not in any way the same as the shift system but can only be likened to that of the Sandwich System as practised in some tertiary institutions.

Alhaji Suhuyini had referred to the Dual-Intake system as a Shift system in a discussion on TV3’s New Day on Tuesday but Rev. Ntim, who was also a panelist on the show, disagreed.

According to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP, unlike the Shift System where the first stream goes for a morning session and the second stream goes an afternoon session, the Dual-Intake system will be on semester basis.

He explained that the first stream of students would go to school while the second stays at home and the second would also go when the first is on vacation.

Not convinced, the Tamale North MP argued the Dual-Intake system is merely a code word, insisting it is a sad situation for the government to have considered such intervention.

“Now, what we are doing with secondary education is simply running it down to a point where parents will begin to consider private secondary education as their first option,” he said.

He continued to argue that the system which he describes as a shift system is a Ghana Education Service (GES) policy the governments have worked tirelessly to eliminate because of truancy, contact hours, indiscipline and stress on infrastructure.

He expressed worry that the reintroduction of such a system at a sensitive level of education will only compound the problem rather than solve it.

Even though Alhaji Suhuyini noted the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has nothing against the Free SHS policy, he observed that the constitutional provision for Free SHS “didn’t say there and then education should be free”.

He further explained that the NDC had a progressive plan to implement Free SHS by first building 200 secondary schools across the country of which 50 were completed and commissioned.

Background

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, speaking at a stakeholders’ forum on education at the Tamale Senior High School (SHS) as part of his tour of the Northern Region, said from September the government would implement the Double Intake System for new entrants into public SHS.

Read: Government adopts Sandwich System for Free SHS

He explained that the system would be a measure to address the growing number of students benefiting from the free SHS policy in the face of inadequate infrastructure.