Mahama’s free education extends to boarding school students

The free senior high school (SHS) education policy of government has been expanded to cover boarding school students, President John Dramani Mahama has revealed.

A budgetary allocation of GHC60 million has been made available for the policy expansion.

President Mahama disclosed this on Tuesday, April 26 in the Tano South District of the Brong Ahafo Region, where he commissioned the sixth community day model school by his government.

The commissioning was part of the ‘Accounting to the People’ tour of the Region.

Day students in Ghana’s second cycle institutions have benefitted from government’s free education programme, which began in the 2015/2016 academic year – precisely in September, 2015.

Speaking at the commissioning of the Derma Community Day SHS, President Mahama said from August he hopes “we will be able to inaugurate the initiative to expand the programme to cover about 150,000 boarding school students from deprived backgrounds in the 2016/2017 academic year”.

“So the free SHS programme is being progressively expanded to cover boarding school students,” he emphasized.

Minister of Education Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang promised that the school will be fully resourced just like all schools in the country as part of government policy.

Derma SHS is expected to enroll about 1,500 students from a previous 243.

It is the first community day SHS to be inaugurated in the Brong Ahafo Region.

President Mahama promised 200 of such schools by the end of his first term during the 2012 electioneering campaign. So far, 123 are at various stages of completion with six including Nchumuruman Community Day SHS commissioned.