Free SHS means increased enrollment that would further require more infrastructure across the country, more teachers, other teaching/learning materials and more importantly, a sustained/dedicated source of funding for the estimated over 1.6 million students [ages 15-17] that are going be the direct beneficiaries of the programme.
For me there has not been proper planning that has gone into the NPP’s Free SHS policy implementation scheduled to start this 2017/2018 academic year, barely a year into Nana Addo’s presidency and I believe that such a rush to start the Free SHS policy is ill-advised and thus could fail even before NPP’s first term in government. A sustainable source of funding, accessibility and quality are vital components of any successful educational policy; free or shared. These very critical prerequisites cannot certainly be ignored.
President Nana Addo’s government should have continued to take on President Mahama’s ‘Progressively Free SHS’, Secondary Education Improvement Project [SEIP], the Community Day SHS infrastructure and T-TEL [Transforming Teacher Education and Learning] programmes, at least, till the end of its first term in office before fully implementing its own flagship and campaign promise, the ‘FREE SHS’ policy. Under studying the educational policies of the outgone NDC/Mahama government before the implementation of the NPP’s Free SHS programme would have been the best and surest way to go. President John Mahama’s educational policies and programmes outlook have been the best for Ghana so far and no sane government can succeed in implementing its educational programmes if those policies and programmes championed by the erstwhile Mahama/Amissah Arthur administration are abandoned.
My apologies if l sounded too direct and offensive, l forgot that we belong to the ‘incompetent’ Mahama government and would not qualify to advice this highly qualified and competent President Nana Addo/Dr. Bawumia government.
All the same, I wish them well….
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