The Africa Education Watch has thrown its support behind the talked-about review of the Free SHS programme implemented by the Akufo-Addo led administration.
The group’s concerns come after the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service in an interview suggested that a component of the Free SHS policy program should be looked at again to ease the burden of mishaps on the country’s education sector.
The Director-General’s assertions were based on the recent inadequate funding for the provision of food for the various secondary schools in the country. This has caused the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) to halt all co-curricular activities embarked upon by senior secondary schools.
Reacting to the call by the GES Director-General, Cletus Sungdong, a Policy Associate at the Africa Education Watch gave the spotlight on the need to review the policy to complement the current economic status of the country.
According to Mr Sungdong, the Free SHS programme has been a welcoming approach to address the training of over 1.4m Ghanaian children at the senior high school level and has even increased enrollment and given opportunities for all Ghanaians to access SHS education.
Nonetheless, the group’s position on such policies in its angle has been the funding or financing when it comes to education. Mr Sungdong said the Free SHS programme is facing financial difficulties which makes it uneasy for the disbursements of funds to the schools.
The group is of the view that more boarding schools should be constructed to devise the problem of accommodation in the double track system even if the government can be able to do that in the long term to reduce the boarding-day system which is about 70-30%. In that sense, a geographical location of where a student had their basic education should be able to accommodate students in its senior high school level to reduce the problem of boarding.
“The Director-General has been on the ground. He knows what’s on the and per what has been said, it’s worth it. From our angle, we commended him for what he said. We must review the free SHS because the direction of our senior high school is not a good thing and the children we are starving in the various secondary schools are not something fun and so we must be able to review the policy and make sure that it’s cost-effective so that parents can support the government keep the policy going. So from our angle, we support what the Director-General is calling for“, he said while speaking on Republic FM’s Anɔpa Dawuro on Monday, July 25.
