Minority questions rush in starting free SHS policy

The Ranking Member of the Committee on Education, Prof. Dominic Fobih has said government’s free SHS programme underway is an extremely hasty initiative, that won’t offer beneficiaries the best in the programme.

Mr. Dominic Fobih beyond what he described as the teething problems with the programme, also criticised the timing of the free SHS launched by President Mahama yesterday.

According to him, the move was hurriedly implemented to score cheap political points ahead of election 2016, but he’s insisted it will create undue pressure on government’s purse, as it already having problems in the payment of subsidies to the education sector.

“The timing is wrong; it is not a good year for such programme to take off; why this time? The government has waited till election period before implementing the free SHS; we all know in election time every politician will be busy out there fighting their course, even the sector Minister wouldn’t get the needed time to attend to his regular schedules. This will suffer some setbacks,” he noted.

Speaking on Anopa Kasapa on Kasapa 102.3 FM, Mr. Fobih indicated that infrastructure remains the biggest problem in the implementation of the programme, as the government hasn’t advanced the required infrastructure to occupy the large numbers of beneficiaries as time goes on.

President John Dramani Mahama launched the progressively free senior high school (SHS) education policy at Ekumfi Otuam in the Central Region Thursday.

On the sidelines of the ceremony, the President also inaugurated the first of the Community Day SHSs, named after the late President John Evans Atta Mils, who hailed from Otuam.

The free education policy is starting with day students and for the first term, 320,488 students will be covered. They are made up of 111,212 first-years, 109,731 second-year and 99,753 third-year students.