Free SHS will thrive, blossom under John Mahama - Dr Apaak assures

The Deputy Ranking Member of the Education Committee of Parliament, Dr Clement Apaak, has given the assurance that the free SHS will thrive and blossom under John Dramani Mahama (JDM) as President.

"He will work with stakeholders to fix all the challenges," he told the Daily Graphic in an interview in Accra.

Meeting with CHASS leadership

Dismissing allegations that former President Mahama would collapse free SHS, Dr Apaak said, "Why will Mahama waste precious time engaging heads of our SHS to discuss how to resolve the challenges bedevilling the implementation of the free SHS policy if he intends to cancel it?"

Dr Apaak said Mr Mahama had held a successful meeting with the leadership of CHASS on how to address the challenges affecting teaching and learning in our SHS on April 8, 2024.

"At the meeting, Mr Mahama listened to the long list of challenges narrated by the heads of our senior high schools and promised to work with them to address their concerns when he gets the nod. 

"He restated his intention to convene a national stakeholders forum to deliberate on the FSHS Programme as a first step towards reviewing it to make it better," Dr Apaak said. He said the position of the former President on the decentralisation of the feeding arrangements in the SHS system to ensure that feeding grants went directly to schools to procure food for students was welcomed at that meeting.

“Equally, his promise to end the obnoxious double track system by completing uncompleted structures and adding new ones to increase educational infrastructure also received commendation,” Dr Apaak, who is also the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Builsa South, said. 

Free SHS review

He challenged Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia to “tell Ghanaians whether or not the current government, which he is a part of, told the IMF that the FSHS programme will be reviewed and rationalised.

Dr Apaak further challenged the Vice-President “to be bold enough to tell Ghanaians that Mr Mahama was right in calling for a review of the FSHS programme just as he admitted to the IMF, as captured on page 76 paragraph 47 of the first review of the IMF programme.”