FLASHBACK: Lack of toilets in SHS: Students can use rubber bags – Education Minister

While addressing the issue of lack of toilets in some senior high schools, the education minister, Matthew Opoku Prempeh, in 2017 mentioned that students defecating in rubber bags is at “least better”. He was answering a question regarding the lack of toilet facilities in some schools under the Free SHS educational policy.

The minister further argued that the Free SHS policy has not in any way contributed to the inadequate facilities in senior high schools as earlier speculated.

Read the full story originally published on December 2, 2017, on Ghanaweb

Education Minister Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh has asked senior high schools students to use polythene bag if they lack toilet facility in their schools.

At a news conference in Accra Thursday, November 30, 2017, Dr. Prempeh answering a question on lack of toilet facility in some schools under the Free SHS educational policy said…

“There are few schools still in Ghana here that are secondary schools who had no toilets; that is not the result of free SHS. So when you see students portraying that somebody says I do it in a rubber bag and I walk 45 minutes, at least you have the rubber bag”

Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh also challenged political critics to name secondary schools that are congested because of the free senior high school (SHS) education policy.

He said there is “no school” that the Free SHS Secretariat placed more students than the heads “admitted they can contain.” The outspoken minister said there is a record at the Secretariat detailing the number of first-year students sent to the various schools.

“If a head tells Free SHS Secretariat that ‘we can only admit 533’ and it places 520 students, (but only) 517 enrolled, how then do we say that Free SHS has caused congestion in the school?” he asked.