Stop Politicizing Free SHS Results- Kofi Asare
The Executive Director of the Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), Mr Kofi Asare has chastised the government for overstating and politicizing West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results of beneficiaries of the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy.
In a Facebook post, he indicated that no research has proven the policy lacks quality, nor can any policy of any government be credited for better results in past exams.
Citing results of the 2013 batch, Mr Asare said the conditions under which an exam is taken determines the results produced.
His post on Thursday read, “Unprecedented WASSCE passes in Maths (71%), English (91%), Science (85%) and Social Studies (94%) were recorded in 2013; the best in decades. This can’t be specifically attributed to government policy.
“There is no scientific evidence that free SHS lacks quality, so stop politicizing free SHS with such comparisons. With every exam comes different stress levels and environments within which they were administered. eg., question leaks and the magnitude, COVID-8 19ffects, etc”
He therefore urged the government to cease politicking with the results produced under the policy.
“You just can’t compare, so please STOP!”
This reaction follows President Akufo-Addo’s remarks at the 61st Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) in Accra on Wednesday, October 11, 2023.
Akufo-Addo touted the Free SHS policy in his speech saying it has produced the some of the better results compared to 2016- before he took office.
“The 2022 results are the best of the last eight years. Indeed, the WASSCE results of each of the ‘Akufo-Addo graduates’ have been excellent and better than the results of 2016.”
“The 2022 WASSCE results of the third batch of Akufo-Addo graduates show 60.39 percent of students recording A1 to C6 in English as opposed to 51.6% in 2016. 62.45 % recording A1 to C6 in Integrated Science in 2022 as opposed to 48.35 % in 2016 with the 2022 results being a slight regression from the 2021 pass rate of 65.7%. 61.39 percent recorded A1 to C6 in Mathematics as compared to 33.12% in 2016 and 71.51% recording A1 to C6 in social studies as compared to 54.5 % in 2016.”
He said this attested to the fact that the policy had not squeezed out quality from education amidst growing enrolment.
The Free SHS policy was introduced by the Akufo-Addo-led government in 2017.
