Don't condemn free SHS policy - Nana Konadu

Nana Konadu was speaking in an exclusive interview during which she announced that she was no longer going to battle the EC to endorse her as her party's presidential candidate as procedures in the electoral processes were far gone, but said she was rather channelling her energy into ensuring that most of her party’s parliamentary aspirants were elected into parliament.

She says she does not understand why people will doubt if someone is promising free senior high school education, saying it was possible as presently SHS education was highly subsidised by government making it almost free in the country.

She explained that what was causing hikes in school fees at the senior high school level was Parent Teacher Association (PTA) levies, sports levies and other levies instituted by the schools themselves.

Free SHS she says was a constitutional right and therefore was possible.

However, she said there was the need to do more to improve the educational system, adding that "for me it is not the free but how do we get the children to actually go to school and stay in school and make something for themselves."

Citing the three northern regions where education was free but children did not stay in school, she said more needed to be done on the educational system .

She said free SHS was however not what would put the child in school but that other things come into play and her party, the NDP would ensure that the educational system was restored in future.

"We have to find out what will make that child go to school or that parent send their ward to school", she added.

"For me the most important is early childhood education" which she said could build the formative years (0-7) of the child and then translated into their adult lives and when this was done right, then we can talk about free basic and free SHS", the former first lady said.

Quality early childhood development care she said, was the solution to ensuring that people got the basics of their education right.

Nana Konadu who said she was not going to predict her bouncing back in the next elections which would be in 2016, said her vision was to see that people go to school, stay in school and university graduates got jobs to do when they came out.

She said she wanted to see a situation where education empowered the child.

Story by Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho