The government of Ghana is planning to upgrade junior high and senior high school certificates to diplomas.

Also, there are plans to reduce the number of years spent by undergraduates at the university from four to three years.

These were announced by the Minister of Education, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh at the 2019 Danquah Institute Leadership lecture on the theme: “World-Class Education an Imperative for the Next Generation of Leaders”.

While JHS leavers will a National Higher Diploma, SHS leavers will get National Diplomas.

In Dr Prempeh’s view, the government does not see why students must necessarily go the university or a tertiary institution before being prepared for the job market.

“The curriculum that will appear for the Junior High School will lead to a National Higher Diploma. When you finish Senior High School, you get a National Diploma. It is not everybody who must go to the University straight, but we must prepare our kids for the world of work.”

“And that National Diploma will ensure that our kids can go straight to work. If someone can go with the Middle School leaving certificate into the army, why can’t someone go now with Senior High School diploma into work? That should be good enough that anybody who has passed and has a certificate should be able to be employed provided we have prepared that person,” he said.

As far as the duration of university education at the undergraduate level is concerned, Dr Prempeh said: “Everywhere in the world, undergrad is three years, not four years. Why should we spend four years doing undergrad? We will sit down with the university lecturers and start challenging them because Ghana is not an island”.