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,' 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, 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.' 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 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.
