Oil, natural resources to fund Free SHS
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Tuesday put to rest the vexed question as to how the government was going to fund the implementation of the free senior high school (SHS) policy.
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Speaking at the official launch of the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP’s) flagship educational programme at the West Africa SHS (WASS) at Adentan near Accra, the President said: “We have decided to use proceeds from our natural resources to help educate the population to drive our economic transformation.”
That declaration by the President put to rest concerns of a section of Ghanaians, including the Minority in Parliament over how the government is going to fund the Free SHS programme.
Free SHS and SDGs
The Free SHS policy is in line with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Four, Target One, which states: “By 2030, all boys and girls complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education, leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes.”
It also stipulates that by 2030, all girls and boys will have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education, so that they are ready for primary education.
Era of financial constraint
The policy effectively marks the end of the era when financial constraints were a barrier to the aspirations of children who wanted to pursue secondary education in the country.
The Free SHS/technical and vocational education and training (TVET) programme is a package comprising the removal of cost barriers, the physical expansion of school infrastructure, improvement in the quality of secondary education, equity and the acquisition of skills for employment.
Empowering the population
President Akufo-Addo said instead of revenue from the country’s mineral and oil resources ending up in the hands of a few people, the most equitable and progressive way of using them was to educate and empower the population to strengthen the nation.
In so doing, he said, Ghana would be on the way to achieving the United Nations SDG Four, which calls for inclusive and equitable education, and the promotion of life-long opportunities for all.
“As co-Chair of the Advocacy Group of Eminent Persons on the SDGs, their implementation is a matter of the highest public priority for me,” he added.
To ensure that no child was denied access to secondary education, the President said, “we are removing one of the biggest obstacles that currently stand in their way: cost”.
“The cost of providing free secondary school education will be cheaper than the cost of the alternative of an uneducated and unskilled workforce that has the capacity to retard our development. Leadership is about choices — I have chosen to invest in the future of our youth and of our country,” the President said.
Free SHS is for all
He, therefore, pleaded with Ghanaians to embrace the policy devoid of political colouration, saying, “the policy is not about the NPP or the National Democratic Congress (NDC), neither will the beneficiaries be only those belonging to the NPP or its sympathisers”.
“They will be Ghanaians from all walks of life and from all political persuasions. This is about Ghana and how best to build a progressive and prosperous nation for this and future generations. Its constitutionality is not in doubt. All Ghanaians should support the policy to ensure its success,” he explained.
The President said as was the case with all human endeavours, the government would certainly face challenges in the implementation of the policy, in spite of best preparations and efforts, adding that by the grace of God the policy implementation would not fail.
“We may falter, but, by the grace of Almighty God, we shall not fall, for we will be ready, in all humility, to accept inputs and criticisms aimed at improving the policy.
“From this day on we lift the financial burden off our parents and the heart-rending anxiety that accompanies the beginning of every school term.
“We have a sacred duty to our children and the generations beyond in ensuring that irrespective of their circumstances, their right to an education is preserved. That is why the government has decided to absorb all SHS fees that have been agreed between the Ghana Education Service (GES) Council and the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS),” President Akufo-Addo said.
Other interventions
He said the government had also reserved 30 per cent of places in the top 82 SHSs in the country for students from public basic schools.
Currently, he said, those top schools were almost wholly populated by students from private junior high schools with good performance at the BECE, relative to those from public basic schools.
But under the Free SHS policy, the President said, the state would ensure that students from public basic schools had equal opportunities to enrol in any of the top SHSs.
“We believe this is crucial in ensuring that we do not inadvertently encourage a permanent class divide where a child whose parents are unable to afford private junior high school education is predestined to be excluded from the top SHSs in the country. That is unconscionable and potentially dangerous for social cohesion,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo said as was done under the administration of former President John Agyekum Kufuor, the government intended to pursue a policy of upgrading 42 existing SHSs to model schools, citing the case of the West Africa SHS.
That, he said, was that “we believe this is an important step towards delivery of quality education”.
Currently, he said, at every stage of education, Ghanaian children were falling out of the system and, to continuing national shame, some children born in the country never made it to a classroom.
“Available data must be of great concern to us all. Over the last four years, an average of 100,000 BECE graduates who are placed in our public SHSs each year do not take up their places. This means that in the next decade, about one million of our young men and women would have had their education terminated at JHS. Such a situation is totally unacceptable and I am determined to end it,” he said.
This year, the President said, the number of BECE candidates who could not have access to SHS dropped to 36,000, not because of the cost of high fees but because, unfortunately, they could not attain the requisite qualification mark.
The free SHS policy, he said, enabled that much reduced number to re-sit the BECE and, hopefully, join the system to further education.
Drop-out rate
Statistics available indicate that on the average, more than 140,000 students are either not placed by the Computerised Schools Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) or placed but do not enrol, largely because of financial barriers, every year.
Out of the number of students placed by the CSSPS yearly, more than 25 per cent do not enrol, while the northern scholarship admission and placement trend shows that an average of 11.48 per cent of candidates placed by the CSSPS do not enrol.
For instance, in 2013, out of the 352,202 candidates who were placed, 90,604 did not enrol, while in 2014 the number of candidates who did not enrol, although they qualified, was 113,260.
In the case of 2015, the number of candidates who did not enrol was 115,363, while that of 2016 was 111,336.
Investing in the future of the youth
The President said technical and vocational skills were crucial to the nation’s industrialisation agenda and that the government was committed to making them attractive to young people.
As part of that move, he said, the free SHS policy would cover pupils who gained admission to technical, vocational and agricultural institutions.
Currently, he observed, technical and vocational education delivery in Ghana was fragmented under 18 different ministries, each with different enabling acts and mandates.
“This has affected system governance, development and coordination for efficiency, quality and relevance of training provision. To confront the challenges, work has commenced to align all public TVET institutions under the Ministry of Education to provide effective policy direction and co-ordination in skills development,” he said.
With the start of the free SHS policy, he said, Ghana had thrown open the doors of opportunity and hope to its young people.
The President said his vision was to ensure that every Ghanaian child attended secondary school, not just for what they would learn in books but for the life experiences that they would gain.
“I want each of them to look in the mirror in the morning, every morning, and know that they can achieve anything they dream of when they complete their studies. I want them to be confident that what they study is relevant to the demands of today, and of tomorrow.
“I want every Ghanaian child to be comfortable in the knowledge that when they work hard, they will be as capable as anyone else in the world. And I want parents to look upon their children with pride as they watch them mature into self-confident adults,” he said.
Determined leader
In a statement, the Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, described President Akufo-Addo as “an excellent leader”, adding that serving under him was a great privilege.
He said the launch of the policy would not have seen the light of day without a determined, focussed and driven leader “who says we have to do this, we have to do that, not because it is politically expedient but because it is the right thing to do for his country”.
