Mahama Pledges To Scrap Double-Track For Better WASSCE Results
President John Dramani Mahama has announced a decisive policy shift to dismantle the double-track calendar in Senior High Schools, arguing that restoring uninterrupted academic time is critical to reversing declining performance in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination. The pronouncement was made Thursday during his inaugural tour of the Upper East Region, where education delivery dominated discussions.
The double-track system, introduced under Free SHS to manage infrastructure constraints, operates by dividing students into cohorts that rotate between school and home. President Mahama attributed the erosion in instructional quality and WASSCE outcomes to diminished contact hours between educators and learners. He contended that the intermittent schedule has compromised pedagogical continuity and deprived students of sustained academic mentorship.
“We realised that one of the things affecting Free Senior High School was the reduced contact hours between the students and the teachers,” President Mahama stated. “So, we believe that if we end the double-track, it will increase the student-teacher contact hours and we believe that will improve their performance in the WAEC exams.” The President’s remarks position the policy reversal as a corrective intervention aimed at recalibrating learning conditions within the free education framework.
To operationalize the phase-out, the government has established a completion target at the close of twenty twenty-seven. The timeline is contingent on accelerated infrastructure expansion to absorb the full student population under a single-track model. Officials indicate that new classroom blocks, dormitories, and ancillary facilities will be prioritized to eliminate the capacity bottlenecks that necessitated the rotational system in the first instance.
Education stakeholders have long debated the trade-offs of double-track. While it expanded access and mitigated overcrowding, critics maintain it fragmented curricula delivery and strained teacher deployment. The Mahama administration’s commitment signals a return to conventional academic calendars, with implications for budgeting, staffing, and infrastructure procurement across the secondary education sector. The move is expected to resonate with parents and teachers advocating for stability in teaching and assessment cycles.
The policy pivot underscores the administration’s broader ambition to fortify human capital development through structural reforms in education. With WASSCE performance serving as a barometer of systemic efficacy, the coming years will test whether increased instructional time translates into measurable academic gains. For now, the government has set the machinery in motion for a transition it describes as necessary and overdue.
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Author: Korkor Anumu
