It has turned out that President John Dramani Mahama is unable to make good his promise of constructing 200 community-based schools across the country. He needs another four-year extension to enable him to do so.
We recall the glee with which the announcement was bandied about the media by a President and his team of propaganda managers who have always regarded Ghanaians gullible and therefore quick to accept anything they put out hook, line and sinker. He has suffered what his predecessors did when they rode on propaganda as a governance supplement. Unfortunately, the President did not realize that what he was putting across was no longer believed even as he relies on the falsified feedback from his managers.
President Mahama will discover when it is too late that propaganda no longer works the magic which he thinks it did over the years and has therefore relied on it to propel his political dreams such as the 200 pipedream community SHS.
We have observed with pain the manner in which the community-based schools project was played repeatedly, the gusto making it look like it is the best thing ever to happen to the country’s educational sector. Now it has turned out to be a fiasco with the goalpost being shifted at will.
We have learnt also how in some areas where the few community schools were sited, they are hardly serving the purpose because the proximity from such locations and residences makes it near impossible for children to access.
When political considerations overshadow the reality on the ground, reason will soon eclipse mendacity as it is being witnessed.
The relatively few community-based senior high schools have served the interest of the politicians at the helm anyhow because they afforded them the opportunity to come and make flowery speeches to justify the inflated costs of such projects and above all mock political opponents.
At the time the projects were thought out, we could tell that they were intended to pull the brakes over the flurry of questions about the government’s so-called newfound love for free SHS about which so much was expended to shoot down by creating the impression that it was an unfeasible project and detrimental to the interest of education.
In the face of the shameful turnaround, the community-based SHS project came in handy; unfortunately, it has failed a potent reality test leaving government pleading for another term to make good a flagship promise.
Considering the journey so far and against the backdrop of the cacophonous propaganda using unlettered citizens who hardly understood the debate on free SHS, we cannot but scorn the inability of President John Mahama to go beyond the paltry number of white elephants SHS frequented mostly by bats and rodents.