The government has justified its decision to allow academically weak students to attend Ivy League Senior High Schools in Ghana even when they do not qualify for those schools per their grades.

In its attempt to address the challenges associated with the implementation of the free senior high school policy, the government introduced the double-track system to ensure that students from basic public schools have equal opportunity to enroll into any of the top senior high schools in the country.

Speaking at a breakfast meeting in Accra on Monday, 12 November 2018, Deputy Education Minister, Dr Yaw Adutwum said the policy intervention by the government has given some disadvantaged students the chance to get a quality education.

He said: “Look at our system, if you happen to go to Achimota [SHS], you get all the resources. And who are the ones who are able to go? But if you happen to go to my school, Gyakye Pramso [SHS], you’re at the short end of the stick; you have limited facilities, you have the most inexperienced teachers teaching you, and these are communities that are educating the poor among the poor. And these are the ones where there are no equity, no intervention so that they can lift up those who are poor and help them break the cycle of poverty.

“So, as we look at the need for quality education, and I know there are a number of people who complain that because of Free SHS, students with aggregate 30 are being sent to PRESEC and are being sent to Achimota and some people are angry, old students call and say: ‘Why should you send a student with aggregate 30 to my famous school?’ And I say: ‘Why not’?

“If PRESEC happens to be or any other school, happens to be in the top 55 schools and they happen to have the best of resources, well-trained teachers, more experienced, they are better equipped to deal with students who are low-performing than the schools that are struggling.

“So, when you talk about access, quality, you cannot afford to forget about equity, and for the last two years, the Ministry of Education has done something unique under the direction of the minister, which required that all our Category A schools, about 55 of them, reserve 30 per cent of their seats to children who went to public schools who are more likely to be poor and disadvantaged”.