The Executive Director of Africa Education Watch (EduWatch), Kofi Asare, has called for a carefully phased end to Ghana’s double-track senior high school system, insisting that the policy introduced as an emergency measure must not be normalised and that equitable access must never be sacrificed in the process.
Speaking on the double-track arrangement and related issues, Asare noted that while the system expanded access, it has compromised the broader goals of education. “In addition to double track… not just to school to learn, including social emotional development and other things, extracurricular activities,” he said. Limited time under the system has shifted focus heavily toward academics at the expense of quality extracurricular provision and holistic development.
He argued that education in its totality encompasses academics and non-academics, and there must be a better balance between the curriculum and the social and other benefits education is meant to deliver to learners.
Asare described the decision to end double-track as the right one because the arrangement “emerged out of an emergency.” “We can’t run an education policy by normalising an emergency… which poses a severe strain on our teachers, especially,” he stated. However, he insisted the exit must be phased and strictly tied to the creation of additional spaces.
“If we need to create 300,000 more spaces in category A and B schools in order to phase out Double Track, until and unless those spaces are available, we don’t phase out Double Track,” Asare said.
He referenced the government’s STAR-J (or STARR-J) programme, a major infrastructure initiative involving hundreds of millions of dollars for hard infrastructure and new school buildings. According to the project appraisal document, the timeline points toward a smooth transition of double-tracked schools to single track by the end of 2030, assuming expedited procurement and fund releases.
“Every project is a project. There may be risks… but all I want to advise… is that the objective is not to end double track. That is not the end itself. The end is to ensure that there is equitable access, which will lead to quality,” Asare emphasised. “Equitable access must not be sacrificed in the name of ending the (Double) track.”
He also highlighted practical difficulties in shifting to conventional day schooling. Many schools were designed and located as boarding institutions in remote areas, making conversion challenging. “How do you make the school secondary school a boarding school when it is located in the middle of nowhere?” he asked, noting that expansion of secondary education since 2017 has largely continued under the boarding model, complicating any rapid pivot to day options.
Asare’s comments come amid fresh public opinion data from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). A nationwide poll conducted in August 2026 among 1,062 respondents across all 16 regions found that 64.7% of Ghanaians believe the double-track system has reduced the quality of SHS education. Only 20.2% said it improved quality, while 14.7% saw no difference. A majority (54.3%) supported government borrowing to construct additional schools and phase out the system, though 38.4% opposed further borrowing due to debt concerns. Among those who viewed the system as harmful to quality, support for borrowing rose to 60.8%.
The double-track system was introduced in 2018 as a temporary response to surging enrolment under Free SHS. Successive governments have set varying targets for its end including 2027 and later revisions toward 2029, backed by World Bank supported infrastructure upgrades under STAR-J/STARR-J aimed at expanding capacity, particularly by upgrading lower category schools.
Asare’s intervention underscores a consistent EduWatch position infrastructure expansion and equity must drive the transition, rather than timelines alone, so that ending an emergency measure does not create new barriers to secondary education for Ghanaian students.
By Gayheart Abraham
Source: Mybluewavesonline.com| Maurice Duncan |Bolgatanga
