Scoring D7 does not prevent one from doing a diploma course

On January 9, 2024, 2:26 PM

Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum has admonished Senior High School(SHS) graduates who scored D7 in any of the core subjects to apply for diploma courses to further their education.

He further urged that students can go on to pursue a degree programme after completing their diploma courses.

Dr Adutwum’s advice follows the reluctance of most universities not to admit students who score D7 in any core subject for a degree programme.

Meanwhile, the Education Minister indicated that there are plans to expand admissions into degree courses for students who score D7 by next year. Dr. Adutwum, however, explained that it would not be a straightforward ride into the course.

He added that students will have to take a pre-university course in the core subject they had the D7 to be able to qualify for the degree programme.

“For degree programmes, the core subjects, there are some restrictions and the current position that GTECH is now considering to allow for next year’s enrolment is the fact that if you have let’s say D7 in Mathematics, the whole idea is that it’s telling the programme especially where Mathematics is very much needed, that you’re a weakling in the subject.

“So the compromise is that you do Math 99 which is a below university Mathematics class that we used to do, called post-O-Level Mathematics. Post O-Level Mathematics was not a university level Mathematics course, but we were doing it in Land Economy, we were doing it because they thought that you did not do A-Level Mathematics and because you did not do A-Level Mathematics you need a stronger foundation in Mathematics and therefore do post O-Level Mathematics”, he noted in an interview monitored by The Ghana Report on Citi FM.

“There were several degree programmes at Tech (KNUST) that were doing post-O-Level Mathematics. In essence, these were not college-level Mathematics, it was beyond O-Level Mathematics, almost like you were repeating A-Level on campus,” he explained.