National Coalition for PTA welcome GES promoting students without assessment

The administrator of the National Coalition for PTA Charles Adjetey Sowah has welcomed Ghana Education Services’ decision to promote students to the next level of their academics without assessment or examination come January.

“I think it is welcoming news, we go along with that decision because we cannot have a situation where the students will be told to repeat the class when there are new intakes, how are we going to manage the space,” he said.

According to him, there can be an internal arrangement with the help of the media to complete the unfinished syllabus alongside the current syllabus since Covid-19 made it possible to do so.

“We are all dealing with a new normal that we didn’t anticipate, if it has come that way,  have to make some sacrifices to achieve the higher goal ahead of us, making sure that the students receive the kind of quality education we want,” he said.

The Deputy Director-General of Ghana Education Service (GES) in charge of Quality and Access, Dr Kwabena Bempah Tandoh relayed that students would advance to the next level of their academics without assessment or examination come January.

He indicated that a significant number of entries into the education sector would raise concerns if not checked as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Hence an initiative by the education service to prevent such happenings.

“If you let them continue to mark time and wait, should this virus last for three years, you would have a large number of children who have not had the opportunity to enter school,” he added.

In collaboration with UNICEF, the Ghana Education Service is pushing for the agenda: right age enrolment.

He said this would ensure children who would enrol in kindergarten, primary and JHS will fall in a suitable age range.

Dr Kwabena Tandoh relayed that despite the promotion of all students, teaching and learning would resume from academic works abandoned in March as a result of the closure of schools due to the pandemic.

“It is the same teachers who are teaching these kids. While they are promoted to Class Two or Three, the content of their academic work will begin from where it was truncated in March,” he said.