Bright Simons rubbishes Ama Ata Aidoo's call to abolish boarding system

Founder of the technology firm, mPedigree, Bright Simons, has rubbished Ama Ata Aidoo’s call for the scrapping of the boarding component in state-as-assisted Senior High Schools (SHSs).

"Because the government botched its secondary school financing policy, so we should now decimate a major component of the Ghanaian secondary school experience?", he quizzed.

Former Education Minister under the erstwhile Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), Ama Ata Aidoo has explained ever since state-owned education was introduced over a 1,000 years ago in some countries, no nation on earth has considered boarding as a necessary component of it.

She said, “Ghana has never been able to afford to provide boarding for students as a major component of its state-owned education system. We cannot afford it, and not wanting to admit this puts us in some danger.”

Ama Ata Aidoo noted that it was quite unfortunate that after independence, the country not only kept boarding as part of the national educational system but also allowed it to expand to its current unmanageable levels.

She added "We can be bold enough to say that until the current government rolled out the free SHS programme, state assistance covered less than 30% of Ghana children. The remaining 70% or so were just abandoned in the rural and urban poor areas.”

But in a Facebook post, Mr Simons who is also a researcher for IMANI Africa wrote “Until they went and brought this free SHS thing, day SHS was already nearly free. They could have chosen to remove the minor fees that remained for day SHS students.”

He added, “We shouldn't get things mixed up. Free SHS is a school financing program. If they've botched it they should fix it, not go and create other problems in other aspects of second cycle education.”

Mr Simons believes all the top secondary schools in Ghana are in urban and peri-urban locations therefore abolishing boarding schools means blocking the path of many brilliant rural JHS students from benefiting from the highest quality segments of our second cycle educational system.

“They should stop that thing koraa”, the post said further.

Read Bright Simon’s post below:

Because the government botched its secondary school financing policy, so we should now decimate a major component of the Ghanaian secondary school experience?

Until they went and brought this free SHS thing, day SHS was already nearly free. They could have chosen to remove the minor fees that remained for day SHS students.

We shouldn't get things mixed up. Free SHS is a school financing program. If they've botched it they should fix it, not go and create other problems in other aspects of second cycle education.

All the top secondary schools in Ghana are in urban and peri-urban locations.

Abolishing boarding schools means blocking the path of many brilliant rural JHS students from benefiting from the highest quality segments of our second cycle educational system.

They should stop that thing koraa.