Govt launches free tuition for SHS day students; Inaugurates Atta Mills SHS today
In line with the NDC government’s manifesto to expand equitable access to secondary education, the President made two key campaign commitments in the run-up to the 2012 elections:
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• To build 200 community day senior high schools.
• To implement the 1992 constitutional obligation to make secondary education progressively free.
The objective of the dual promise is to expand physical access, with a focus on under-served areas and provide demand-side incentives for people to enrol in secondary education.
Two hundred schools
The construction of the 200 schools commenced in March 2014 with sod-cutting by the President at Nyanoa in the Upper West Akyem District in the Eastern Region for the construction of the first 50 schools.
In November 2014, he launched the Secondary Education Improvement Project (SEIP) in Kintampo, the second phase of the community day schools project to commence the construction of 23 additional schools with ancillary facilities, supported with funding support from the World Bank.
Under this phase of the project, facilities in 50 existing schools are being upgraded and 125 low performing schools are receiving investment in the form of science laboratories, libraries, additional classrooms, teachers’/staff flats, programme blocks (vocational, technical, business) and canteens.
The rest are toilets and bathrooms, furniture for classrooms, laboratories and staff rooms, roofing of existing structures, strengthening of structural frames, enclosing walls, windows and doors, ceiling, wall furnishing and floor finishing, decoration of structures and painting of buildings to improve environment and performance.
Performance improvement
Quality improvement includes investment in the following performance improvement activities: in-service training in Mathematics, Science and ICT, the provision of ICT package for schools, ICT equipment, maintenance and general school environment improvement.
The rest are co-curricular activities support, including Math/Science clinics, field trips, staff team building and management training, Science and Technology equipment and renovation, as well as teaching and learning materials and guidance and counseling.
Shape of schools
The schools are designed as E-shaped structures signifying excellence, with each block being a complete senior high school.
One of the completed schools to be inaugurated by the President is made up of the following: 24 classrooms, four laboratories for Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Integrated Science, two libraries, eight offices for departmental heads, ICT laboratories and an Internet Learning Area.
The community day schools project has progressed as promised. The total under construction is 123. Two of the projects have been completed and the other 121 are at various stages of completion.
The Ministry of Education will initiate measures to award the outstanding 77 projects.
Progressively free education
While the President inaugurates one of the completed schools to signify expansion in capacity, the second promise will be redeemed with the launch of the progressively free secondary education.
Progressively free education seeks to gradually ease the cost burden on parents and guardians and make secondary education financially accessible through progressive absorption of identified fee items paid by parents.
Programme implementation will commence with the absorption of 10 key fee items for all day students in the 2015/16 academic year.
The beneficiary students exclude all day students who are benefitting from other forms of scholarship, such as the Ghana Cocoa Board scholarship, Northern scholarship, Secondary Education Improvement Project Scholarship, and those on scholarships provided by NGOs, corporate bodies and individuals.
In subsequent years, the programme will be more sharply targeted and expanded to cover other fee items and boarding students who require such assistance.
In the 2015/16 academic year, GHc114 per annum will be absorbed by the government for each beneficiary day student but payable to the schools termly at a rate of GHc38 per term.
The fee items to be absorbed are as indicated in the table above. Parents are expected to pay other approved fee items on the approved fees sent to the schools. These include fees payable once by all first-year students and approved PTA levies.