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Ms. Barbara Ayisi, Deputy Minister of Education (Basic Education), has assured owners of private schools of strong support by the government to sustain their operation.

     She hinted of plans to assist them to acquire school buses on hire purchase and on good terms to give their students some comfort.

      She was addressing the annual general meeting of proprietors of private second cycle schools (CHOPS) in Koforidua.

      Ms. Ayisi indicated the government’s preparedness to continue to engage them on the concerns they had raised over the implementation of the free senior high school (SHS) policy.

    She noted that in every challenge, there were opportunities and encouraged the proprietors to be innovative and creative to remain competitive.

     She recognized the vital contribution the private sector was making to the development of the nation’s education and said it was in everybody’s interest that it thrived.

    Mr. I. K. Mensah, National President of CHOPS, called for the review of the free SHS policy to enable students in private SHS to also benefit from the intervention.

    He asked that the government came out with a cut off point for students, who could enjoy the policy to enable every student who qualified for admission to enjoy the scholarship either in a public or private school.

    He insisted that the free SHS policy was benefiting children from the rich homes more than those from the poor homes.

    Children from the rich homes, whose parents are able to afford the high school fees of the best private basic schools, end up in the well-endowed public SHSs.

    He added that those from the poor homes, attending public basic schools and could not make higher grades at the Basic Education Certificate Examination(BECE) to qualify them for public SHS, who often found their way to the private SHSs.