The Ghana Education Service (GES) on Thursday said it will in September this year introduce new uniforms for Junior High School (JHS) pupils.

Professor Kwasi Opoku Amankwa, GES Director-General said the uniform to be used in addition to the existing School ones, from next academic year to prepare the pupils to appreciate the fact that they are in transition from primary to secondary school.

Prof Amankwa who was addressing the press in Accra said the change of the uniform had become necessary as the current one had made it impossible for JHS pupils to distinguish themselves from their junior colleagues in the primary level.

The uniform comes in a form of a brown and white striped shirt with the Ghana flag, a graduation cap, a certificate and books printed in it to be worn over a ‘Kaki Skirts’ for girls and over a ‘Kaki Shorts’ for boys.

The Director-General explained that the flag printed in the shirt symbolises patriotism, the graduation cup and certificate stood for intelligence and superiority while the book depicts knowledge for empowerment.

According to Prof Amankwa, the cost of the uniforms will be paid by parents while the government catered for that of those in deprived areas as per existing arrangements.

Commenting on the prohibition of the payment of examination fees in basic schools, he stated that the constitution of the nation provided for free, compulsory, universal basic education.

“The implication to us is that no child should be denied access to academic work by reason of the person’s inability to make payment of any levies or fees which had the potential of denying any child access to academic work was unacceptable,” he said.

The GES Director-General said the purported writing of examination questions on the floor and ceilings by teacher have been over dramatized stressing, GES find it unnecessary.

He assured all head teachers, parents and students that the issues will be resolved during next term’s examinations.

Prof Amankwa stated that the service in consultation with stakeholders in the education sector intended to use part of their capitation grants to pay for the printing of examinations papers.

“We also intend to provide printing equipment at all districts education offices throughout the country to cater for the printing of examination questions and other printing needs of schools without any direct financial commitment to any students,” he said.

The GES Director-General reiterated the government’s commitment to the development of education, stating that the government in 2018 released an amount of GHC2,500.00 for each education circuit and would this year ensure that each circuit received GHC4,200.00 to help improve teaching and learning outcomes.

“The administrative grant to regional offices which used to be GHC1,000.00 per district per year was increased to GHC6,000.00 in 2017, GHC50,000.00 in 2018 and it is expected to be increased to GHC100,000.00 this year,” he said.

He stated that for Senior High Schools, a sum of GHC794,076,339.15 has been released to schools out of the budgetary allocation of GHC899,524,466.30 for the 2017/2018 academic year.