Free SHS Bill in the offing to ensure no future government cancels policy

The Minister for Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum is expected to present a bill to parliament to bind future governments to the free Senior High School (Free SHS policy.)

The Free SHS bill is part of a number of legislations expected to be considered by parliament during the 3rd meeting which commenced on Tuesday (June 11).

Addressing the media during a leadership engagement, Majority Leader Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin argued that such a legal backing for the policy will ensure it becomes a right for every qualified Ghanaian

The other bills on the agenda are the EOCO bill seeking to amend existing EOCO Act, the Affirmative Action Bill among others.

“You cannot claim the right to those provisions. The fact that they are there does not mean that you can apply to the court to enforce those rights. They are aspirational. Now when it gets to a point that a government lifts it up to give life to it, there’s a need to enact a law to regulate it.

“And in doing so, it would have been given life. Then the lawyers will say ‘Now it has become justiciable’ in the sense that a court of law can rely on it to make certain orders, enforce certain rights, give rights, and take certain actions,” Mr. Afenyo-Markin stated.

He continued: “So I think that this free SHS Bill if we consider it as a House, what that means is that it becomes mandatory for the government to implement this until it is repealed. No government will have the right to say ‘I’m not going to enforce Free SHS’ because now there is a law.”