Mahama Announces Boarding Status for Han SHS

President John Dramani Mahama has announced plans to convert Han community day school in the Jirapa District into a boarding school to improve access to secondary education for students from surrounding rural communities.

Speaking during an inspection of ongoing development projects, President Mahama said the school currently has five Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund)-funded projects under construction and commended the contractors for the quality of work.

“I want to commend the contractors for the quality of work that we can see going on here,” he said.

President Mahama explained that the decision to convert some community day schools into boarding schools was informed by the challenges students in rural areas face in commuting long distances to school.

He said the original concept of community day schools was intended primarily for areas with high population densities, where students could easily travel from home to school.

“But we came to the realization that especially for the schools in the rural areas, because their catchment area is very wide, it makes it difficult for the students to commute to school every day,” he said.

The President said the government had therefore adopted a policy of converting schools in rural areas with large catchment populations into boarding institutions.

“And so the intention now is to use the community day concepts in the high density population areas where the children can stay at home and easily go to school, and then for those that are in the rural areas with a big catchment area, we turned them into boarding schools so that the children can reside on campus,” he explained.

Addressing the headmaster, President Mahama gave an assurance that the school would be granted boarding status once the ongoing construction works were completed.

“So, headmaster, I mean, we’re not going to give you boarding status, we won’t start building boys and girls dormitory so you know that definitely boarding status is on the way,” he said.

He added that once the contractors completed the projects, the school’s designation would be changed to a boarding school, allowing it to begin admitting students under the new arrangement.

“Once the contractors finish, we’ll change the designation of the school into a boarding school and then you can start admitting students,” President Mahama said.

The President also announced a US$300 million World Bank-supported facility aimed at ending the double-track system in Ghanaian senior high schools.

He said the programme would support the expansion of schools that are still operating the double-track system while also providing infrastructure for new schools.

“Under that project too, we’re building 16 brand new secondary schools so that we can ease the congestion in the existing schools,” he said.

President Mahama expressed the government’s expectation that the double-track system would be completely eliminated by the end of 2027.

“We hope that by the end of 2027, no Ghanaian child should be on a double track system,” he said.

According to him, eliminating the system would ensure that students attend school at the same time and increase contact hours between teachers and students.

“Everybody goes to school at the same time, studies and closes at the same time,” he said.

“We believe that that will increase the contact hours between the teachers and the students and it will help to improve their performance when eventually they write the WASSCE exam,” President Mahama added.

He assured the school authorities that he would return when the projects were completed for their commissioning.