The Minority Leader in Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu has lauded the free Senior High School policy which officially takes off today [Tuesday] across the country describing it as a “noble” objective but unsustainable.
He argued that the mode of financing the policy is not sustainable in the long run.
“My emphasis is that let us not pursue this noble objective which is important for the future of our students and dear to the parent's hearts with experimental financing. Our position is one for which we are not asking for vindication today, we will be vindicated with time,” he said on the Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday.
President Nana Akufo-Addo is billed to launch the free SHS policy today at the West African Senior Secondary School (WASS) in Accra.
Haruna Iddrisu on the Citi Breakfast Show said about 564,000 continuing students will not benefit from the policy because only fresh students are being covered under the programme.
“We appreciate and acknowledge the fact that whilst he was campaigning set out a noble objective of free senior high school. Remember at the time he was campaigning in the secondary schools not with final year JHS 3 students who are now targets of the free senior high school policy. Our contention is that the mode of implementation is fraught with difficulties. As we speak 564,000 students in senior high school will not benefit from the President’s free senior high school promise. That comprises of 270,000 in the second year and 290,000 in the third year,” he added.
The Minority had earlier asked the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government to apologize to Ghanaians for refusing to capture continuing students onto the free SHS education policy.
The Minority, at a press conference on Monday, said: “if the NPP had any modicum of respect for the good people of Ghana, they should at the very least be apologizing to Ghanaians for their inability to fulfill the promise for which they were voted.”
Haruna Iddrisu who addressed the press conference said: “The continued claim by President Akufo-Addo and his acolytes that they have fulfilled their Universal Free SHS for all promise is simply hypocritical.”
NPP 2016 manifesto promise
Akufo-Addo in his 2016 manifesto stated emphatically that he will “redefine basic education to include Senior High School (SHS), covering vocational, agricultural and technical schools, and make it available for free on a universal basis to all Ghanaians.”
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