Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum has said the dismantling of the ‘middle school’ structure from the country’s educational system left a dire impact on secondary education.
The ‘middle school’ system was replaced with the current system [Junior High School] which separates lower secondary from the upper secondary following the educational reforms in 1987.
The middle school system used to be part of the elementary school which provided an opportunity for students to either move from primary six straight to secondary school or through middle school before secondary school.
According to Dr. Adutwum, there is a need for a transformation of the current system to enable the country to compete with others in the world.
“1987 education reforms dismantled what used to be a bifurcated pathway where you could go through the middle school system and skip to secondary or you can move from primary six and go to secondary. We created a monster, we removed what used to be middle school… In 1987, we told ourselves we don’t need seven years of upper secondary… We borrowed a concept from the United States of America,” he said.
Addressing a press conference on the interventions by the Ministry on Sunday, he said despite the adoption of the Junior High System, it did not provide any requisite skills to students to enable them to compete globally.
He added that “when the middle school was taken away, we did not also replace that with quality Junior High School”.
For this reason, Dr. Adutwum noted that junior high schools are being constructed under the Akufo-Addo government which will have facilities similar to that of second cycle schools to ensure quality education.
“We have Junior High Schools that are under construction now and facilities in there will be just like high schools. It’s a pilot programme and students who go through it would have three quality years of Junior High, move on to Senior High to do another three years, giving them six years making them competitive and making us compete in the world,” he stated.
The pilot programme will begin with some 10 junior high schools
