Free SHS Is An Audacious Policy- Asantehene
The King of the Asante Kingdom, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has characterized the Free Senior High School initiative introduced by the Akufo-Addo-led government as a bold step in the country’s education sector.
Speaking at a Congregation to confer on him an honorary doctorate degree at the University of Cape Coast (UCC) in the Central Region on September 5, 2024, he chronicled how administrations since the country’s pre and post-independence era shied away from implementing free education at the second cycle institutions despite having them at basic and tertiary levels due the financial demands that accompany it.
He therefore characterized the move by the current government as audacious.
“There is no doubt the Free Senior High School programme is the most audacious piece of social intervention in our Fourth Republic. The pre-independence programme for free education covered primary education and later the university.
“The secondary sector was beyond the capacity of the State. None of the reforms had dared move the dial through that space. The decision to take the plan therefore had to be truly ambitious and it is no wonder it has kept education at the top of national discourse.”
Funding
He recognizes that the financial demands of the policy at the expense of other sectors of education are fueling legitimate concerns from a section of Ghanaians.
“Against such backgrounds, the mixed response to the recent free Senior High School Scheme has not been a surprise. The Minister for Education here will want to do more but he doesn’t have funds to do what he wants to do.”
“As we have already noted, every educational reform undertaken in Ghana has been driven by financial constraints arising from national economic malice. Whereas in the developed world, educational reforms are undertaken to ensure the content of education matches the economic and social needs of society, here we are driven solely by what is available to spend in the fiscal space.
“It is for this reason that even an audacious scheme like the FSHS which one would expect to receive universal acclamation has instead been married in some controversy with some blaming it for exasperating the fiscals of the economy and yet with that programme, Ghana has yet to teach the universal benchmark for national spending on an educational percentage of Gross Domestic Product.”
Misalignment
His Majesty also observes that the commendable policy is indeed causing misalignment between the high schools and the tertiary.
He suggested that pragmatic steps be taken to reform the tertiary sector to meet the current demands sponsored by the free SHS policy.
He is of the firm view that one level of education shouldn’t garner national focus at the expense of others.
“Every dramatic increase in enrolment affects the physical resources and infrastructure of schools, affects learning materials and above all requires a corresponding increase in the number of qualified teachers. Beyond these more than once in the past two decades, every expansion of the secondary level has had a huge impact on the tertiary sector and yet at no time have we seen an attempt to coordinate the implementation of any secondary sector reform of the universities when at a stroke, enrolment in SHS are doubled. The universities have to brace themselves for any inevitable surge in demand for Undergraduate Studies with no prior consideration for its effect for fiscal resources.
“Our universities are already bustling at what seems with a rising student population which is virtually overwhelming fiscal resources and infrastructure. It should be obvious that as important as the Senior High school may be, focus on it should not lead to a misalignment of results for should it become the focus of all attention in national discourse. Rather, we should recognise the necessity to look at the challenge of national education in its totality.”
