President Nana Akufo-Addo has predicted the possible return of former President John Mahama to the seat of government and therefore hinted of enacting a law to protect his famous Free SHS policy from a possible review and abolishing of the programme.
“This [the Free SHS law] will ensure that those who have pledged in [ads1]their dreams to ‘review the free SHS policy’ do not get the chance to destroy this policy in the very unlikely event that they return”. – President Akufo-Addo said
According to him, with the enactment of the legislation, access to SHS be made extremely compulsory for every school going child to go to school.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony of the University for Development Studies (UDS) at Tamale in the Northern Region yesterday, Saturday, the President said his government had worked very hard against all odds in the last 22 months to broaden access SHS education for more Ghanaian children.
“Indeed, the most important resource of any nation is its people, investing in our children and thereby the future of our country is the most appropriate investment any government can make and we are fully committed to continuing on this part,” President Nana Addo stated in his address.
The Free SHS policy was key the campaign promises of the then opposition NPP in both 2008 and 2016 elections. Winning the 2016 election, the president took the bold steps to roll out the programme in September 2017 for all first year students in all public SHSs and Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) institutions across the country.
The policy absorbs all approved fees including school fees boarding fees and feeding fees that were being charged before the 2017/2018 in public SHS and TVET Institutions.
Amid challenges and public outcry on the sustainability of the programme come at the back of former President, John Dramani Mahama promise that he will review the policy if elected President in December 2020.
Former President Mahama has always maintained that access to education should not be a focus of quantity but quality for a holistic human capital development.
This he said was the major reseasons why he choose to invest heavily in educational infrastructure by building the e-block schools.
Source: AwakeNewsOnline.com | Efo Korsi Senyo
