Has Govt Released The Remaining 80% Free SHS Funds To Secondary Schools?

Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, a deputy minister of education, recently disclosed that, the government, would disburse the remaining 80percent funds to senior secondary schools under the free Seniior High School (SHS) programme.

He made this pronouncement three weeks ago, so far nothing, has been heard about that promise. Knowing this government, especially, the minister of education, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh, to be a rabble-rouser, the whole world, would have heard of the payments, if it has been released.

Students in second cycle schools, are expected to go on Christmas break this week, ending the first term of the academic calendar.

Already because of the free SHS, which was hurriedly implemented, many schools are under conditions that are unhealthy, uncomfortable, and unsafe, congestion in schools are so bad that it poses health hazards and the outbreak of H1N1, is a testament to that.

The Head of Disease and Surveillance Unit at the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Franklin Asiedu-Bekoe, has identified congestion at senior high schools (SHSs) as one risk factor for the spread of meningitis.

The government was advised to hasten slowly in redeeming a campaign pledge, which they have four years to implement.

The situation, students and masters find themselves in, is a precarious one, that must not be left to the government alone, to salvage.

The education minister, must be advised to tone down on his utterances, at a meet the press series, he accused his predecessor, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku Agyeman, of incompetence, because she left behind arrears, today arising out of the fall out of the free SHS policy, seven students have died from meningitis, can the minister, also be called a murderer?

Government, must find reliable source of income to fund the free SHS, its sustainability depends on that.