By Zobia Zulfqar 
President John Dramani Mahama has commissioned the E-Block of Paga Senior High School (SHS) in the Kassena-Nankana West District as part of his Resetting Ghana Tour of the Upper East Region.
The commissioning forms part of the Government’s efforts to improve access to quality secondary education and provide schools with the infrastructure needed to accommodate growing enrolment.
President Mahama said improving the quality and accessibility of education at all levels, including secondary education, remained one of the major priorities under the Resetting Ghana Agenda.
He assured the Paga SHS community that the Government would provide the school with additional facilities and logistical support to improve teaching, learning and student welfare.
The President said the school would receive a 60-seater bus, a boys’ dormitory, a girls’ dormitory and a dining hall.
The planned facilities are expected to address some of the challenges facing the school as it accommodates students under the Free Senior High School programme.
Government expands support for Free SHS
President Mahama also addressed concerns about feeding and financing under the Free SHS programme.
He said the Government had made progress in addressing previous challenges associated with feeding students, noting improvements in both the quantity and quality of food provided to Senior High School students.
According to the President, the Government had also introduced dedicated and continuous funding for the Free SHS programme.
He said the availability of dedicated funding was helping improve the quality of education delivered under the programme.
The President’s comments come as the Government continues efforts to expand infrastructure and improve conditions in secondary schools across Ghana.
The introduction of Free SHS significantly increased demand for places in public secondary schools, creating pressure on existing facilities and contributing to overcrowding in some institutions.
E-Block programme
Touching on the history of the E-Block programme, President Mahama said the concept was introduced during his first term as part of efforts to expand access to secondary education.
He explained that at the time, Ghana had slightly more than 500 secondary schools, which he said were insufficient to accommodate the number of children expected to enter secondary education under the Free SHS programme.
The Government therefore planned to accelerate the construction of 200 new E-Blocks to provide additional classroom space and prevent pressure on existing schools.
President Mahama said the objective was also to prevent the education system from eventually operating a double-track arrangement.
However, he said the E-Block projects were subsequently abandoned after a change in government, while the Free SHS programme was accelerated without a major expansion of existing secondary school infrastructure.
According to him, this contributed to the introduction of the double-track system in Ghanaian Senior High Schools.
He said the current Government had returned to the E-Block programme as part of efforts to address infrastructure shortages and eliminate the double-track system.
End of double-track system
President Mahama assured the people that the Government was working toward ending the double-track system in secondary schools.
He said the Government’s target was for no secondary school in Ghana to operate the double-track system by 2027.
Under the system, schools operate separate groups of students on different academic calendars to manage limited infrastructure and accommodate increased enrolment.
The Government’s infrastructure expansion programme is intended to provide sufficient classrooms and other facilities to allow students to attend school at the same time.
President Mahama said the completion and commissioning of the Paga SHS E-Block represented part of this broader effort to increase infrastructure capacity in the secondary education sector.
Additional facilities for Paga SHS
While commissioning the E-Block, the President also assured the school community that the Government would provide additional facilities to complement the new infrastructure.
The proposed boys’ and girls’ dormitories are expected to increase boarding capacity, while the planned dining hall would improve arrangements for feeding students.
The 60-seater bus would also provide the school with additional transportation capacity for academic activities, competitions, educational programmes and other official engagements.
The combination of classroom infrastructure, accommodation, feeding facilities and transportation support is expected to improve the overall learning environment at Paga SHS.
President Mahama’s announcement forms part of a wider push by the Government to address infrastructure gaps that have emerged in the education sector.
The expansion of secondary school infrastructure is expected to remain important as Ghana works to provide access to secondary education for more young people.
The commissioning of the Paga SHS E-Block therefore marks another step in the Government’s efforts to expand school infrastructure and support the implementation of Free SHS.
With the additional facilities promised, the school is expected to have greater capacity to accommodate students and provide improved conditions for teaching and learning.
President Mahama said the Government remained committed to completing unfinished education projects and providing the infrastructure required to ensure that students across the country have access to quality secondary education.
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