Expect serious implications; teachers, students will suffer – NAGRAT on change from trimester to semester

The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has warned that there will be serious implications if the Ghana Education Service (GES) goes ahead with plans to permanently change the education calendar from trimester to semester.

The Deputy Director-General of GES, Mr. Kwabena Bempah Tandoh on Monday, January 17, 2022, told Citi FM that stakeholders have been consulted and all have agreed to make this year’s school academic calendar a semester system.

Reacting to the claim on the same platform during Eyewitness News, National President of NAGRAT, Mr. Eric Agbe Carbonu said his outfit was not engaged.

According to him, NAGRAT only recently learnt of the decision and believes its implications on teachers and students will be dire.

“There are implications. Very serious implications. And our position is that when the nation is changing from a trimester to a semester we needed a wider stakeholder consultation and discussions. The implications also have to be negotiated with the unions and then we take a common decision. All these things have not been done and we have serious problems with the fact that now we are hearing that the semester system is a permanent feature,” he told Citi News.

The NAGRAT National President proposes that a broader consultation should be done to take the views of teacher unions, parents, CSOs, and the general public before such a crucial decision is taken to make the semester system permanent.

“There are labour implications in the shift from trimester to semester, we also have issues to do with instruction, teacher-learner instructions taking the ages of the children, taking the level of the children, whether a semester system is more beneficial than a trimester, all these things we have to sit [and discuss]. That is why we say wider stakeholder consultations,” Mr. Eric Agbe Carbonu noted.

Meanwhile, the leadership of the Ghana National Council of Private Schools (GNACOPS) has also urged the Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Service to change the 2022 calendar from semester to trimester.