Basic school children across the country will return to school next Tuesday, September 10, 2024, for the commencement of the 2024/2025 academic year.

This is the first time, post-COVID, that first-cycle students are officially beginning the academic year in September, as was the case previously.

After operating a transitional calendar in 2021 and 2022 with the school year starting from January to December, the Ghana Education Service (GES) began the process to return to the former calendar last year, beginning from October 3, 2023.

The GES reverted to the pre-COVID-19 academic calendar for basic schools following the completion of the 2022 academic year.

2024/2025 calendar

Per the 2024/2025 academic calendar released by the GES that was made available to the Daily Graphic, kindergarten (KG), primary and junior high school (JHS) pupils and students will spend a total of 15 weeks for the first term, which officially starts on September 10, 2024.

The term will end on December 18, 2024, with schools vacating on December 19, 2024.

The second term of the academic year will resume on January 7, 2025, and last till Wednesday, April 16, 2025.

The students and pupils will then go on vacation on Thursday, April 17, 2025, having spent another 15 weeks in school.

Schools will again reopen for the third term on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, until July 24, 2025, to end the academic year.

In all, the schoolchildren will spend 12 weeks in the third term.

A highly-placed source at the GES told the Daily Graphic that the post-COVID calendar has come to stay.

It also disclosed that plans were underway to restore the second cycle calendar to the pre-COVID era.

Disruption

From 2021 to 2022, the academic calendar for basic and senior high schools was rescheduled for January to December after schools were closed in March 2020 as part of measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Management of the Ghana Education Service wishes to inform you that the reopening date for basic schools (kindergarten, primary and junior high schools) across the country for the first term of the 2023/2024 academic year is October 3, 2023,” a memo signed and issued by the Deputy Director-General of the GES in charge of Quality and Access, Dr Kwabena Bempah Tandoh, said.

Stakeholders

Teachers, parents and school authorities welcomed the return to the pre-COVID-19 academic calendar, which was reset for September to July, describing it as better than the transitional one.

The pre-COVID academic calendar, which they termed as ‘the regular schedule’, allowed for better planning for the effective delivery of education to children in the country as it provided enough contact hours with students.

Also, the commencement of the academic year in the third quarter of the year, they said, would afford them the opportunity to purchase stationery and other educational items.

SHS level

Ghana is unable to participate in the May/June West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for School Candidates (SC) because the calendar for senior high schools is yet to be fully reset.

Currently, final-year senior high school candidates are sitting the Ghana Only version of the WASSCE SC for the third successive year.

However, the other four-member countries of WAEC — Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia — have already returned to the May/June calendar for WASSCE school candidates.

Schools’ closure

On March 16, 2020, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo directed the closure of all schools after the country recorded its initial cases of COVID-19.

The announcement brought all academic activities to a halt, throwing the academic calendar out of gear.

Consequently, the beginning of the academic year shifted from September/October to January.

This continued until 2022 when the GES developed a transitional timetable in an attempt to revert the academic calendar to the pre-COVID-19 era.