Akufo-Addo’s 'Free SHS' approach 'good' – Bentil

The approach adopted by the Akufo-Addo-led government towards implementation of the Free Senior High School (SHS) programme is good, Kofi Bentil, Vice President of policy think tank IMANI Ghana has said.

Mr Akufo-Addo had indicated that the programme would commence with students admitted to public high schools in September 2017.

To that end, an amount has been earmarked for the start of the project as announced in the government’s budget statement presented to parliament by Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta in March.

Assessing the government’s performance in the last 100 days in office while speaking on GHOne television, Mr Bentil said the approach to start the programme in stages was the best.

He said: “The 100 days is not enough time to judge anything. It is just enough time to give indicators. Indicators will just give you a certain sense of how well something is going to move, so based on that alone we can say that what we have seen is more positive and we think that if they continue like this they are likely to achieve most of their promises.

“It is not just the promises they must focus on. They must focus on the things that are important. For instance, the security problems, we think they must give it the focus. If you take for instance the Free SHS, the promise to make it free, much as it has been controversial, it is a good one. We have had to question them about it, but we think that the approach that they are using is a good approach, to start small and then grow it for some time before it is complete. But in the meantime they must also take a hard look at the junior levels especially. Even though it may not be in their promise, we think it is a very important thing that they must do.”