'A blanket Free SHS is just unintelligent' – Prof Akilagpa Sawyerr slams government

Renowned Ghanaian academic and legal luminary, Prof Akilagpa Sawyerr, has criticized the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) policy being implemented by the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo government.

Speaking in an interview on JoyNews' "The Sages" programme, on June 22, 2024, Prof Sawyerr indicated that even though as a Marxist, he supports free education, the policy currently being implemented by the government does not make sense.

He said that while the government is spending millions to provide food and accommodation to children whose parents can afford their fees, some Ghanaian children are studying under trees, while others are sitting on classroom floors to study.

"The notion of free education is a laudable one. But the pursuit of that objective without costing, without working out the lines of movement, without working out the impact on other parts of the economy very carefully, for me, it's a failure of policy, not the objective.

"The notion that my children under this system could go to a boarding school and get free food, free everything, when there are other students, younger students under trees, how does that make sense? I can afford to pay for my children's boarding and so on. If I can afford to pay, why do you give me that concession when the budget that you use for that could support people who don't have the basic desks to sit on?" he said.

The renowned academic added that the policy must be tailored in such a way that it benefits the poor and needy.

"A blanket free education for everybody when you can't afford it, not only for me, is bad policy, it's just unintelligent, to put it bluntly," he said.

Prof Sawyerr also pointed out that he has not heard any meaningful defence of the programme by the government.

"And for me, the worry is that I have not heard any intelligent defence of the SHS in this form," he added.

BAI/AE

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