Former President John Dramani Mahama, Flagbearer of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has indicated that his administration in 2021 after winning the 2020 general election will implement the Free Senior High School in a better way.
According to the NDC Flagbearer, the Free SHS Policy which was introduced by his main opponent President Nana Akufo-Addo has come to stay, making it impossible for any government including his next government to put a stop to it.
“Free SHS Education has come to stay. If anybody tells you that I John Dramani Mahama, son of E.A Mahama will abolish Free SHS when I come, tell the person he is s bloody liar”, he assured.
During his courtesy call on the Overlord of Dagbon, Ya-Na Abukari II, former President John Mahama clarified that inasmuch as the Free Senior High School is a good policy, it is being implemented by the Akufo-Addo government in a wrong way as it is creating a great inconvenience for parents, students and teachers.
“What I am against is the poor implementation of the Free SHS, which is creating a great inconvenience for the parents, for the students and for the teachers. The point I have made is that we can implement it better”, he mentioned.
The Free SHS, introduced in September 2017, meant that the fees of every child in Ghana, who gained admission to a public Senior High School, will be absorbed by the government. It also meant free tuition, admission, textbooks, library fees, science centre fees, fees for ICT, examination fees, utility fees, boarding, and meals.
This, the government believed, will remove any cost barrier that prevents students from achieving their educational goals.
The policy, however, has not been spared from challenges. The increased rate of admissions cased a shortage of infrastructure in some schools with students allegedly forced to sleep on mattresses on the floor.
Subsequently, government introduced a double-track system to alleviate the living challenges. Students were divided into two tracks, gold and green, and took turns going to school.
The development, which saw the gold track in school and green at home and vice versa periodically, was widely criticized by many Ghanaians and civil society groups.
In view of the challenged associated with the implementation of the Free SHS Policy, former President John Mahama said the challenge would not have existed in the first place if the Akufo-Addo government had completed the 200 senior high school building projects he started.
“If this government had followed our plan of continuing with the 200 new Senior Secondary Schools we were building, we won’t have current situation that we have in our Free SHS Plan”, he asserted.
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