CENAB UK Advocacy Group believes strongly and incontrovertibly that there is a clear blue and tangible difference between Nana Addo's Free SHS which has been holistically bought by Ghanaians and John Mahama's Progressive Free SHS promise which has been predicated on the wings of vain hope. The clear difference lies in the physical structure and built-in sustainability factors which the latter’s lack thereof.
Nana Addo’s Free SHS is built solidly to last on three layers of structure, which are Redefining Basic Education, A Teacher First Agenda and Restructuring of the Curriculum. To achieve this will require the expansion of the physical infrastructure of schooling and hence the building of two hundred community-based schools around the countries. To ensure sustainability, the Nana Addo Free SHS built-in a well-packaged budget based on the percentage of Ghana’s GDP in every year’s budget. This was presented to Ghanaians in the most vivid and candid of discussions from BBC to the Ghanaian media. Without doubt, the Free SHS policy debate has received the most sustained audience in the lifetime of the 4th Republic and the NDC position on the matter was clearly an anti-position.
When Nana Addo first announced this well thought through Full Free SHS policy, which is the biggest national development plan since the 1925 Guggisberg Plan which has sustained us till now, the NDC with their leadership who lacked foresight put a spin on it that, the Free SHS is not feasible; the idea is a misplaced priority; it will collapse Ghana educational system; it can only be implemented after 20 years’ time; anything Free is bad; Ghana cannot afford Free SHS; and the list went on.
Even after all the media intrusion and final acceptance of the sustainability of the Nana Addo programme, the NDC/Mahama insisted that it was madness for anyone to think of introducing Free Secondary School education in Ghana using the National Constitution as the bedrock of their argument.
Now, barely 13 months after the 2012 general election, which would be most memorable in history for two facts, namely the national debate on the free SHS and the Supreme Court hearing, the NDC have made the biggest and most humiliating U-turn in our political history to accept a policy which was “not feasible” “misplaced priority” “bad” “going to collapse the educational system” and needed to be “implemented in 20 years’ time”
CENAB UK Advocacy group has scoured the length and breadth of the NDC progressive Free SHS programme and cannot fathom the structure of what the NDC says is the same or better than the Nana Addo programme. The NDC has not shared the contents of their programme and neither have they discussed with the public how they are going to sustain it for the years to come, but we have their programme content. It is a known fact that the NDC government is sustainable-vision deficient and that is why the numerous social engineering policies they inherited from the NPP administration could not be sustained.
CENAB UK suspects a clear propaganda agenda behind the NDC buy of the Free SHS programme. President Mahama seeing that Ghanaians have bought into the idea of the Free SHS policy and voted convincingly for NPP Nana Akufo-Addo, and also anticipating that the NPP leader may come back again with the same Free SHS policy for 2016, the NDC/John Mahama government are now telling Ghanaians that they intend to introduce the Free SHS program in 2016 election year. Translucently, this NDC Free SHS promise by Mahama is another political gimmick just to hoodwink Ghanaians for votes and will not travel a day after 7th December 2016, if they win.
Stealing of NPP ideas and lacking the ability to sustain, it has become the hallmark of NDC policies and story in the long tale of steal-and-destroy agenda. In 2008 when Nana Addo pledged to introduce the Northern Development Authority project (NDA) to develop the North and bridge the poverty gap between North and South; the NDC/Professor Mills mimicked the idea and decided that they would also introduce Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA); when NPP introduced NHIS, the NDC mimicked and decided to introduce one time NHIS premium; when NPP introduced National Youth Employment Program (NYEP), the NDC also promised "Youth In Agriculture" now the corruption hub GYEEDA; when NPP introduced Zoomlion Ghana Ltd, the NDC has also introduced Zoom Alliance Gh Ltd; NPP dubbed its 2012 manifesto People Matter, You Matter, the NDC also named their manifesto the same. In all these situations as soon as the NPP ideas were forcibly taken, they could not sustain the programmes (NDC Steal-And-Destroy Agenda).
CENAB UK Advocacy is passionately appealing to all Ghanaian media, NGOs, religious and civil societies to have a holistic view of the happenings in Ghana and help the ordinary Ghanaian make a choice of leadership that will give a better future to our children, not just a leadership that thinks about winning the next elections. The Nana Addo Full Free SHS programme for both Day and Boarding Students is a well-thought-through one with all the structure and built-in sustainability factors considered, whilst the NDC one is just another propaganda attempt designed to impair the awareness of the need and essence of the full Free SHS in Ghana, with the aim of enhancing their electoral fortunes in 2016 general elections, just as all the promises made and being made to deceive Ghanaians, which are now having serious adverse resultant effects on the majority of Ghanaians today.
Nana Akufo-Addo’s programme deserves a chance and can better be implemented by the vision holder. Let's give him and Bawumia the opportunity to offer the innovative ideas they evince can move the country forward.
Source: CENAB, UK Advocacy Group.
(Email: cenabuk@gmail.com)
(Website: www.cenab.org
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