EXECUTIVE Director of Institute of Education Studies (IES), Dr. Armah, has said government’s decision to provide free Senior High School (SHS) education in September this year is not absolute but partial.
According to him, free SHS has been in the public domain since 2012 with the previous government’s intention to kick-start.
However, certain questions bothering on issues of equity have been raised pertaining to the objective and the intention of this policy.
Speaking in an interview with Accra-based Class FM, Dr. Armah said statistics indicate that a number of students drop out of school before the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), whereas those who are able to write have low grades to get them space in our secondary schools.
Elaborating on the statistics, he pointed out that on an average of 100% of people from poor homes and from rural areas, only 20% qualify or are able to attain SHS education.
He mentioned that out of these people, 11% come from the Upper East, 22% from the Upper West and 11% from the Northern Region.
He said government was offering a partial free SHS education since it was not absorbing the total cost of money spent by parents on SHS pupils.
“Government is only taking off specific items like the fees, feeding, boarding and the likes which make up about 52% of total cost for boarding students and 90% for Day students leaving parents the remaining 48% to pay,” he added.
According to him, unless government absorbs all necessary costs involved in attending SHS, it was not providing total free SHS education to the school children.
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