Free SHS is a hoax - Minority

The Minority in Parliament has accused the president of deceiving Ghanaians in the implementation of the Free Senior High School (SHS) program as 565,404 continuing students have been left out of the government’s flagship program.

At a press conference held on Monday, September 11, the minority called on the president to apologise to the continuing students for “snubbing” them.

According to the Minority, the current free SHS being rolled out by the government is a departure from what the party wrote in its 2016 Manifesto.

“Page 107 of the NPP’s 2016 manifesto said: “Free SHS – The NPP will redefine basic education to include Senior High School (SHS), covering vocational, agricultural and technical schools, and make it available for free on a universal basis to all Ghanaians.”

“But beneficiaries of the programme are junior high school (JHS) graduates who have had admissions into SHSs”, the Minority lamented.

Minority Leader, Haruna Idrissu who led the conference emphasized that the program has been plagued by “financial and implementation challenges” hence the need for the President to come out and apologise to Ghanaians for misleading them.

“If the NPP had any form of respect for the people of Ghana, they should at this point be apologizing to the good people of Ghana for their inability to fulfil their promise to Ghanaian. So to President Nana Akuffo-Addo, it’s not too late to tell the people of Ghana that this policy is flawed with implementation and financial difficulties. The idea of Free SHS remains a noble social educational objective. Our (Minority) concern is that it must be assured of adequate, reliable and sustainable financing not experimental financing”, he said.

Meanwhile, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is expected to officially launch the programme at the West Africa SHS (WASS) at Adentan in the Greater Accra Region on Tuesday.