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Finance Minister, Ken Ofori- Atta in his mid - year fiscal policy review of the 2018 Budget presented to parliament Today (Thursday) has outlined that government has released GH¢899,524,466.30 to finance the 2017/18 academic year Free Senior High School [SHS] policy.

He stated that government will continue its flagship programme despite the challenges facing its implementation.

“Mr. Speaker, government continued with the implementation of the Free SHS Programme after its take-off in September, 2017. The implementation of the programme created opportunity for the enrolment of an additional 90,000 students who would have otherwise dropped out of school.

“Currently, a total of 362,118 first year students from all public SHS are benefiting from the programme. This is made up of 117,692 day students and 244,426 boarding students,” he recounted.

Aside the released budget, sufficient provisions have again been made in the 2018 budget to cover the 2018/19 academic year in addition to some amount of infrastructures supplied the various senior high schools.

“To date, GH¢899,524,466.30 has been released for the 2017/18 academic year. In addition, sufficient allocation has been made in the 2018 budget to cover the first term of the 2018/19 academic year,” he stated.

He told Parliament that to address the initial challenges identified with the implementation of the programme, 96,413 mono desks, 32,171 dining hall furniture, 3,033 tables and chairs for teachers, 12,953 bunk beds, 4,335 student mattresses, and 5,135 computer laboratory chairs were supplied to various SHS.

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