Akufo-Addo Notices “Powerful Forces” Against Free SHS

The President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has noticed that opposition to his Free Senior High School (SHS) Policy is coming from “powerful forces” in the country.

According to him, the forces are “eager to curtail” the policy.

“There are some powerful forces in the society that are against it (Free SHS) and who are insisting that education should be what your parents can afford and they should not contribute to paying for education but I have a different view”, he said during a meeting with the leadership of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) at the Jubilee House.

But the President maintains that the policy is a good one.

“I think it’s a public good and the benefits for the nation and the society are obvious.”

However, he believes that it’s time to have stakeholder engagement over the calls.

“One of the things the people are calling for and some way or another the government has to organise itself to respond to is the reviewing SHS. Maybe we should have a broader conversation about the incidence of education on our national development and therefore also on our budgetary and public sector contributions to national education.”

President Akufo-Addo divulged that his government is struggling to provide adequate resources to fend for the needs of students.

“Already we’ve spent considerable amount of education in budgetary terms, you know, virtually higher than all the countries on the continents. Nevertheless, it is still inadequate. If it were adequate we would spend more on students for their feeding programme, we would deal with the issue of teacher trainees allowance, and we would deal with the issue of scholarships. All these are the direct response of budgetary constraints in the system.”

Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini