"Government must think through free SHS again"-Proof Ayee

Professor Atsu Ayee, the outgoing Rector of MountCrest University College (MCU), has expressed the fear that the government�s intention to use the Ghana Education Trust Fund to finance the fee-free senior high school from 2015 might render the policy unsustainable. �Even though this is a welcome and laudable idea, one is worried over the suggestion that funding will come from the GETFund, which is already overstretched and over-committed and cannot at present meet some of its obligations,� he said. Professor Ayee was speaking at the fourth matriculation ceremony of the MCU in Accra. President Mahama had indicated in his State of the Nation Address to Parliament last month that senior high school will be progressively free from 2015/2016 academic year. The policy would see that payment of fees by day students in the SHS is abolished, but the Rector said the system might fail. Professor Ayee therefore called on the government to re-think through the use of the GETFund for the fee-free SHS education again. According to him, policies and programmes designed by succeeding governments to put the economy on an even keel since 1993, had not addressed the basic challenges of Ghanaians. �Consequently, the country is aid-dependent, cannot meet most of the Millennium Development Goals, job creation is minimal, the private sector is anaemic, while there is still the continuous pursuit of politically expedient economic policies and programmes,� he said. He called on the nation to, as far as possible, reach a consensus on how to handle and improve the economy and develop a bipartisan approach to it. Professor Ayee indicated that, leadership was the most important variable in shaping political and developmental outcomes in a country and that there was the need for transformational leaders to take Ghana out of its current crisis. �In fact, throughout human history, transformational leaders have emerged to move their countries from one stage of development to another; �Even though political leadership has reassured Ghanaians that the state of the country is healthy, the indicators are pointing to different directions,� he said. He therefore advised political leaders in the country, to rise above partisanship and to rather forge towards statesmanship.