School has re-opened and a new, 4-year senior secondary, now called senior high school, is in place at all schools.
This means that the form one group that will enter Sofoline this October will graduate in 2011, making 2010 a year that we will not produce
any graduates.
The Ministry of Education just instructed Opoku Ware Secondary School (OWASS) community that
"their school is now called Opoku Ware Senior High,"
which could be shortened OWASH if they want. Another example is Presbyterian Secondary School in Accra (PRESEC), which
will also assume the name Presbyterian Senior High School.
But perhaps Asanteman Secondary School will be the greatest beneficiary of this new policy change; they will become Asanteman
Senior High (ASH) instead of the ASS that they currently use.
All their stationary and letterheads and other official documents are being changed by the government so without the "Secondary" on the
records it will be hard for them to justify the use of names like PRESEC and OWASS.
It is interesting to know that three schools that use the name "College" survived this transformation. Prempeh, Adisadel and St. Augustines will still be called Colleges
while the "academicians" (Kumasi Academy and Accra Academy) are likely to remain unaffected.
In fact, when the former SSS concept was introduced, Prempeh College maintained its name.
This is not the first time a four-year secondary system has been implemented. In 1960, the government introduced a 4-year secondary
school system. But after the pioneer group completed in 1964, the government discarded that idea and returned to a five year and then a seven system.
The secondary school sytem has gone through incredible transformation over the years: from a 3-year Cambridge School
Certificate system to a 5-year GCE system to a 4-year system
to a 7-year GCE system to a 3-year SSS system and now back to a 4-year senior high system.
While the extension of the program by a year appears extremely important, the changing of the name from
secondary to "high school" seem trivial and useless. It is not likely that such a trivial name change will affect well-established schools like OWASS/OWASH and Mfantsipim.
