Double-track was a triumph, not a failure – Former Deputy GES boss counters Haruna Iddrisu

A former Deputy Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Dr Kwabena Bempah Tandoh, has dismissed claims by Minister for Education, Haruna Iddrisu, that the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) Double-Track system undermined quality, insisting the policy was one of Ghana’s most effective educational innovations.

The Education Minister, Haruna Iddrisu, said the double-track system implemented under the Free SHS policy has hurt the quality and outcomes of education across Senior High Schools (SHSs) in Ghana.

Speaking at a media briefing on Sunday, August 24, Mr Iddrisu described the system, which was introduced to manage overcrowding in SHSs, as a temporary solution that has compromised effective teaching and learning.

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But the former Deputy GES head disagrees. In an article in which he responded to the minister, he said far from lowering standards, the Double-Track system was a “masterstroke of policy” that not only expanded access but also significantly improved learning outcomes.

“The fear that reduced classroom time would lead to a decline in quality crumbles in the face of hard data,” Dr. Tandoh argued. “An analysis of WASSCE results from 2015 to 2024 reveals that the period under the Free SHS and Double-Track system represents the best performance in Ghana’s WASSCE history.”

He pointed to WAEC statistics showing that from 2020 onwards, pass rates for all four core subjects consistently stayed above 50%, with Mathematics results climbing from the 30s in earlier years to above 60%. He further highlighted that Ghanaian students topped the WAEC Excellence Awards across West Africa over the past five years — proof that quality had not been compromised.

Dr Tandoh, who served at GES between 2018 and 2025, recalled that the Double-Track policy, introduced in 2018 under then Education Minister Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, was a pragmatic response to overwhelming demand after the launch of Free SHS.

“With over 180,000 qualified students at risk of being denied access due to infrastructure limitations, the system allowed schools to maximize existing facilities while government ramped up construction. It was an essential bridge, not a setback.”

He noted that far from reducing teaching time, the school calendar was restructured into semesters, “increasing contact hours from 1,080 to 1,134 per year – adding 162 more hours over three years.”

Dr Tandoh also pointed to complementary interventions such as 8,872 new teaching jobs, free remedial support under the Academic Intervention Grant, and specialized training for Maths and Science teachers as evidence of the government’s commitment to quality.

Beyond infrastructure, he said the Double-Track era ushered in a digital leap in education, citing the Ghana Library App, the iCampus portal, Ghana Learning TV and Radio, and the “One Teacher, One Laptop” and “One Student, One Tablet” initiatives as long-term reforms that future-proofed learning.

Beyond the Hype: How data and digital innovation show the double-track system was a triumph for Ghanaian education

For him, the legacy of the double-track system is clear: “It’s about the over 1.2 million students who would have been denied education without this intervention. To say it negatively impacted quality is to ignore the data, the innovation, and the lives transformed.”

He concluded that while the policy was always designed to be temporary, it achieved its purpose by ensuring access, improving outcomes, and accelerating Ghana’s educational infrastructure and digital transformation.

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