Former President John Dramani Mahama is angry with President Akufo-Addo for his refusal to review the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government’s flagship education policy, the Free Senior High School (Free SHS).
In his view, the government has sacrificed quality for quantity by its continuous politicisation of the policy, with its attendant challenges, including inadequate feeding for boarding students.
He argued that the current implementation module of the Free SHS policy remains unsustainable and would only continue to lower the quality standard of education at the secondary education level.
Addressing the 8th Biennial Delegate Conference of the Ghana National Association of Private Schools (GNAPS) in Koforidua on Wednesday, former President Mahama, who is lacing his boots to lead the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), called on the government to organise a national stakeholders’ conference to review the implementation of the Free SHS.
According to him, this will help address some of the challenges that have bedeviled the policy implementation, and which are affecting the quality of education in the country.
“The time is now for us to rise to the occasion and collectively agree as actors in the political and developmental space on the need to depoliticize issues of urgent priority such as education delivery in our country,” he asserted.
“What is the use of education if it does not have the quality to give the learner a chance and opportunity in life,” he asked rhetorically and continued that a future NDC government would prioritize building a strong foundation at the primary level.
“If you don’t get it right at the primary and basic level, whatever you do at the secondary level is a wasted effort. You need to build a strong foundation at the basic level,” Mr. Mahama pinned.
He said that while he admits that the Free SHS programme has come to stay, the three pillars of education must not be compromised, and mentioned them as access, affordability and quality.
He urged the government to give equal treatment to students in both private and public schools, noting that a bursary system that targets the poorest families and households, which also covers private SHS, would help to address the financial and infrastructural challenges of the policy.
Source: dailyguidenetwork.com
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This man so annoying and it's not funny anymore....... Which review is he talking about. Those who can afford school fees payment are the same people whose tax payments are being used for free SHS and you don't want them to benefit as well. Propose alternative and solutions and stop the blind criticisms the only NDC wise man and presidential material.
I just can't fathom why the NDC would choose Mahama over Dr. Duffuor as their candidate for the presidential race in 2024. Mahama is always doing propaganda instead of proposing better solutions. Then, if you listen to Dr. Duffuor when he speaks on issues, he is candid and proposes genuine alternative solutions, making his contributions a tool to convince Ghanaians that he is capable of offering alternative solutions rather than propagating to make cheap political points. Thus, Ghanaians are aware that the government has economic changelleges but that they will profess to entrust solutions to the competence of the NDC-I will strongly bet to differ. In other words, at this point, an untested new strong youthull third force is very likely and appropriate to break the seemingly inevitable NPP-NDC imposition.
I am waiting to see how the ***barred word*** would deal with free SHS, whose child should pay fees for who to go for free? Some Ghanaians are ungrateful. Mahama’s father was a minister during his childhood but he went to secondary school for free, such a greedy person telling Ghanaians the free shs should be reviewed. Is it not the same mahama who used tax payers money on bus branding? Ahhhba, you gave a whole Ghana bauxite to your brother after loosing 2016 elections, such a greedy politician want to come back because some Ghanaians are have short memories. Is mahama the only wise person left in ndc? I don’t get it whyyy?