Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh aka Napo, has challenged critics of the government’s Free Senior High School (SHS) programme, who have been claiming that there is massive congestion in the country’s senior high schools due to the introduction of the programme this year.
The minister jabbed the critics when the Ministry of Education took its turn to brief journalists during the ‘Meet the Press’ programme at the auditorium of the Ministry of Information in Accra yesterday.
Napo admitted that though the programme initially faced some teething challenges, most of the claims lack merit and are intended by the critics to divert public attention from the good policy the government has adopted to put the country’s educational system on a sound footing.
Recently, former President John Mahama and his opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) members, bitterly criticized the programme, asserting that a future NDC government might scrap it; but he later denied saying that it would be reversed.
Explaining the processes, Dr Opoku Prempeh stated that the Ghana Education Service (GES) acted on the enrolment request it received from heads of various schools to allocate the first-year students, adding that contrary to the congestion claim by the NDC, quite a number of the schools did not even get the enrolment figures they requested for.
He mentioned a recent story on social media depicting a line-up of school beds on the corridors of an SHS school in the Northern Region as one of the misled postings which were seriously intended to arouse public mistrust in the programme.
The minister gave the assurance that the government would not be distracted by such unfounded claims because the presidents’ mantra is to build a solid educational foundation for the country.
Dr. Opoku Prempeh further indicated that before the roll out of the Free SHS programme, the ministry held a series of preparatory meetings with stakeholders at various levels.
Fee Payments
Speaking on fee payments for the first years, the minister explained that at the start of the programme in September, the ministry of education provided 20% payment to the schools, and gave the assurance that the remaining would be paid after the heads of the various schools had closed their admissions.
He regretted the fact that as at November 2017 only 100 headmasters out of the 674 SHSs in the country had submitted their returns for the next claims.
He wondered how fees of second and third-year students could be used as feeding grants for the first-years since the amount involved was woefully inadequate.
Procurement
On procurement procedures, he indicated that headmasters had been instructed to ensure that their suppliers are registered with the Ghana Buffer Stock, which is the key distributing channel for the government.
Utilities
Dr Opoku Prempeh explained that the government had absorbed the bills of utilities (water and electricity) – in which case the payments are now made directly to the utility service providers.
The government will soon roll out a new programme to introduce the use of solar energy and mechanized borehole systems in secondary and tertiary institutions nationwide as a strategy to cut down on payments for utility services.
He stated that an estimated 1,191,194,942.11 would be spent on infrastructural development in various educational institutions.
Upgrading
According to the minister, the government intends to upgrade 35 National Vocational Training Institutes and nine colleges of education into technical universities.
Source: Daily Guide
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Let us be deluding ourselves that this is a laudable program. Look at basic education. Common textbooks are non existent,not to talk of furniture let alone decent classrooms. If you don't have enough money to build a chamber and hall but you decide to build a sky scraper the end will decide whether you have a sky scraper or not. All of those politically blinded myopic minds who are hailing this program, when educational performance starts plummeting in this country,you will know whether we have made the right choice or not.NO BUILDING BUILT ON A WEAK FOUNDATION CAN STAND. I rest my case
It is sometimes intriguing when a section of our media fall prey to the diabolic agenda of ill-willed people in our society. There is no gain, saying that the free SHS programme is a laudable one, and has come to stay. The cacophony of noises must stop and let us focus on how to sustain it for the betterment of all. Frankly speaking, I will prefer, and I am sure quite a good number of Ghanaians will do same, to have a father who will start building a house, ill-prepared but well-intended, than a father who wants to buy and keep building materials till he has the full complement before he starts building. By which time he himself would have died or the children would have become drop-outs and delinquent as a result lack of accommodation or overcrowding. What kind of mentality is this? Did we have all schools in the north ready with all the requisite infrastructure before free education was introduced in in the northern sector of Ghana? Did we introduce the programme in the north 'progressively'? Would we ever have the full complement of infrastructure in the near future or when to introduce the programme 'progressively'? I will prefer to learn under a tree and even on a floor or better still on blocks with wooden planks on them rather than loitering about in the village or in our cities as kayayes, truck pushers, sakawa boys, land guards, and prostitutes. For the information of those making the most noise, some of us had our secondary education in villages where there were no electricity nor pipe-bourne water, yet some of us rubbed shoulders with people from the so-called endowed school. When we had our 'A' Levels in so-called first class schools, we 'shocked' them. A number of my colleagues are lecturers, lawyers, MBAs, to mention but just a few. May I ask. Those who are claiming that the free SHS programme was rushed through, how do you feel when you see people from the northern descent pushing trucks in traffic in the morning while you drive pass? Or is it because your cars have tinted classes so they don't see you, let alone calling you? Do you visit your hometowns? How do you feel when you see your less fortunate cousins, nephews or people from your village selling by the streets? Or their crime is that they were simply not lucky to have parents like you did? So society should continue to neglect them? What is most annoying is that the Scholarship Secretariat and the COCOBOD keep giving scholarships to children of the affluent in society. Political faithfuls have their children schooled abroad, paying huge sums of foreign currency as fees for international students when the poor cocoa farmer's children still wake up at dawn, goes to farm before going to school. The result is that they come out poorly at the BECE. And your are saying we should keep them in the ***barred word*** for your selfish interests? Please, may I repeat, even if students sit on the floor and listen to ananse stories in our SHS, it is still better than we keeping then illiterate for ever. The cacophony must just stop and dear media men and women, do not allow yourself to be swayed by people in our society who see themselves as first class citizens and that all others must be left to remain in slavery.
It is better for the children to learn under trees than be on the streets selling ice water, do you know how many teenage pregnancies have been prevented, you hypocrites, God Don punish you all. your progressively free the NDC style has caused lots of armrobbery in 🇬🇠were students not learning under trees during your so called progression, ***barred word*** people
NDC has no idea to do what NAPO and his team is doing so they just have to criticize, what a very low IQ people in ndc? Don't forget they said it was NOT possible and ran more than 30 adverts against it so no doubt they are criticizing. No amount of that will derail this noble idea from this govt. bcos it is a national development agenda not political to build human resource for high level digital development. NDC YAAMUTU.
One amazing thing about the critics of the FREE SHS is that, the most vociferous critics of the program are those who enjoyed free education from the north at the back of the poor cocoa farmers.
I have now realize that the critics of the free SHS are not only criticizing the problem but move to a notch high of sabotage...They've seen that with a successful implementation of the free SHS program,they have no chance of coming back to political power hence doing everything to destroy it.
ITS A KNOWN FACT THAT THE FREE SHS WAS A GOOD THING, BUT WAS RUSHED AT ITS IMPLEMENTATION JUST FOR POLITICAL EXPEDIENCY. NPP AND NANA ADDO JUST WANTED TO SATISFY THEIR WHIMS AND CAPRICES OVER THEIR CAMPAIGN PROMISES. NAPO IS JUST BEING SARCASTIC ABOUT THE FACT THAT THE FREE SHS IS TRULY FACING SERIOUS CHALLENGES. NAPO SHOULD JUST STOP MAKING POLITICS ABOUT SUCH SENSITIVE POSITION HE'S OCCUPYING, HE SHOULD RELINQUISH THE POST FOR THOSE WHO CAN DO THE JOB BETTER IF HE FEELS THE MINISTRY IS FAR BEYOND HIM. AFTER ALL HE ADMITTED HE KNEW NOTHING ABOUT EDUCATION. A BIG INDICTMENT ON PREZ.NANA ADDO.
Let the 'EVIL-MINDED' critics come and debate Dr. with hard core evidence. Shame NDC!