Accra, Jan 26, GNA - The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) on Monday threw its weight behind the three-year Senior High School (SHS) programme, saying it is not different from the four-year course which kicked off last academic year.

"The syllabus (of the four-year course) is not different from the three-year programme," Mr Kwame Alorvi, President of NAGRAT, told the Ghana News Agency in a telephone interview.

He said apart from French and ICT, the first year programme deals only with the core subjects - English, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies.

The elective courses begin only in the second year, Mr Alorvi said, adding that in fact the SHS programme was essentially still a three-year programme. He said the number of periods on the time table for the electives had been reduced from eight to five, adding "we're doing less than three years". Mr Alorvi said the cost of the four-year to the nation and parents is high while it hardly added anything to the content. "Even for French and ICT, which are taught in the first year, there are hardly any teachers for the subjects." He said textbooks for the four-year programme had not arrived while some subjects had still not got their syllabus. According to Mr Alorvi, the new education programme was to begin from Kindergarten and asked how many such schools had been built. Further, there has been no physical expansion to classrooms and dormitories of the SHS.

He noted that the report of the education commission set up by the previous government recommended a three-year programme and asked how the four-year programme came up. Further, the universities which admitted students from the SHS, he noted, had adjusted their programme to suit the three-year SHS and asked what would be done now.

On the way forward, Mr Alorvi said the SHS1 students should begin lessons in the elective subjects immediately while a crash programme should be carried out for the SHS2 students to make them cover up lost ground.

Teachers who would be involved in the crash programme should be given incentives to ensure that it is successful. President John Evans Atta Mills' nominee for Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, has kicked off a debate about the duration of the SHS programme, saying he would implement the National Democratic Congress' manifesto which would revert to a three-year programme. The nominee, who was former Acting Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, said the former government began the four-year programme when it had not put in place the syllabus, infrastructure and textbooks.