Former Deputy Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Dr. Kwabena Bempah Tandoh, has defended the double-track system under the Free SHS policy, asserting that it has significantly expanded access to education and contributed to Ghana’s consistent successes in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
Speaking on Channel One TV’s Face to Face programme with Umaru Sanda Amadu on September 9, Dr. Tandoh highlighted that the system enabled over 1.27 million students to access classroom instruction.
Acknowledging criticism of the approach, he argued that its impact on learning outcomes and examination performance has validated the policy.
“The learning outcomes in terms of quality fly in the face of all the noise that has been made around double track. There has been vindication,” he said.
“WASSCE has an excellence award. In 2020, the first, second, and third students in West Africa were Ghanaians. In 2021, first and third, the students were Ghanaians. In 2022, first and second, Ghanaians. In 2023, first and third in West Africa were Ghanaian students. In 2024, first, second and third students were Ghanaians,” he recounted.
Describing the double-track system as a “human intervention,” Dr. Tandoh acknowledged that challenges exist but stressed that it has achieved its core objective of widening educational access while maintaining quality outcomes.
“It’s a human intervention; we can always have challenges,” he said.