Eduwatch Happy With Reverted Basic School Calendar
The Executive Director of Africa Education Watch (EDUWATCH), Mr. Kofi Asare has expressed satisfaction with the reversion to the pre-COVID-19 academic calendar.
In a Facebook post on Friday, he said the news was “great”.
“Great to hear Ghana Education Service has re-set the basic school calendar to pre-COVID era; next academic year begins 3rd Oct.”
Additionally, he said it will be “fantastic” to start the SHS academic year in November as the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) results are expected in October.
The Ghana Education Service (GES) earlier this week confirmed basic schools will resume from vacation early in October.
The reopening for Kindergarten (KG), Primary and Junior High School (JHS) students across the country, it said, will mark the beginning of a new academic calendar which will conform with the pre-COVID-19 schedule.
“Reopening date for Basic schools for the first term of 2023/2024 academic year is 3rd October 2023,” the GES said in a Facebook post on Wednesday, September 13, 2023.
A letter dated September 13, addressed to Regional Directors of Education and sighted by opemsuo.com, stated that the date was deliberately chosen to revert the academic calendar to its pre-COVID-19 schedule.
“By this letter, Regional Directors of Education are requested to communicate this date to Metro, Municipal/District Directors of Education to inform all heads of Basic Schools to bring to the attention of parents/guardians and students to take note and prepare accordingly for a smooth and effective academic work.”
Following the disruption in the global academic calendar in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the GES was compelled to start the academic year in January and end in December instead of September to July.
Last year, the Service introduced a transitional calendar to enable it to revert to the pre-COVID era timeline. By that, basic schools this year went through three full terms plus one term of the next academic year all within this year making four terms from January to December 2023.
The first term began from January to March 2023 and was followed by the second term which began in April and ended in June 2023. The last term for the academic year spanned from July to September.
