Government to adjust education structure to mirror Cambridge system

Government is set to pilot a tweaked secondary education structure that mirrors the Cambridge system from next year with 10 schools.

The Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum on JoyNews’ Upfront said the method is to improve various Junior High Schools to the standard of Senior High Schools and to ensure a seamless transition from one level to the other.

The current system which separates lower secondary from the upper part was implemented following the education reforms in 1987.

JoyNews/AdomNews · Government to adjust education structure to mirror Cambridge system
But on Tuesday, the Minister said this separation is largely responsible for the poor state of Junior High School education across the country hence the decision to reverse starting with a pilot next year.

“The middle school that used to be part of elementary was maintained and the infrastructure is what we use in operationalising the Junior High Schools.“And these schools don’t have science laboratories, libraries. But we still insisted with a stroke of a pen that they are high schools.

“So when you talk of the President’s vision for transformation; he wants to strengthen the lower secondary. Ensure that it has similar facilities and support as high schools even though they are community based,” he told Raymond Acquah.

To actualize this, Dr Adutwum said the junior high schools that are being constructed under the Akufo-Addo government will have facilities similar to that of second cycle schools to ensure quality education.

“We are going to have schools that have libraries, chemistry, physics and bilogy science laboratories but they are junior high schools.“When we strengthen that, give them another quality three years secondary education, it will add it all up to six-year quality secondary education,” he said.