Government willing to engage private schools in Free SHS implementation - Oppong Nkrumah

The Deputy Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah says Government is ready to engage Conference of Heads of Private Senior High Schools to address their concerns over the implementation of Free SHS which seems to have denied them students.

He advised them to submit a formal petition to the Ministry of Education for government to consider their proposals saying Nana Akufo-Addo led NPP government is a listening government and is ready to listen to them.

At a press in Accra on Wednesday, the National Secretary of CHOPSS, Joseph Dzamesi, expressed the fears of members of the conference losing the investments they had made in the private secondary schools and the possible job losses.

“What is to happen to the millions of Ghana Cedis that have been invested into our schools.

What is to happen to 10,000 plus Ghanaian workers who are employed in our schools, “he questioned.

But responding to CHOPSS on Oman FM’s National Agenda on Thursday Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah indicated that the implementation of Free SHS was not meant to collapse private schools.

In his view, the private second cycle schools should be willing to agree with the government by accepting the fees being charged by public Senior High Schools since some parents may be unwilling to pay more if their ward’s are placed in private schools.

Mr. Oppong Nkrumah admitted that the private schools suffered some collateral damage and assured that the government was working to resolve the challenges, albeit with a focus on the public school system.

“There is no effort to thwart what private people are doing. It is just that, what government is doing, it is focusing on doing it and doing it well.”

“We would encourage the private institutions to dialogue with government and to perhaps present to government ways by which they can also be a channel for the smooth execution of the programme, and we will be willing to engage with them on that front,” he said.