My son is not old enough to be in SHS, ignore false reports - Education Minister

Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Adutwum has shot down claims that he has enrolled his son in a private senior high school despite the implementation of the free senior high school.

He described the allegation as a political agenda meant to deceive the public at a press briefing held on Sunday, June 6, 2021.

The Deputy Ranking Member on Parliament’s Education Committee Dr. Clement Apaak had slammed the minister saying he lacked the merit to talk about free SHS because he had enrolled his ward in a private school.

The MP for Builsa South, Clement Apaak, opined that the decision by the Minister for Education, Dr. Yaw Adutwum to enroll his son in a private SHS instead of the public SHS is proof that he does not believe in President Akufo-Addo’s free SHS.

“If the free SHS programme in public schools is running well as Dr. Adutwum would want the whole world to believe, then he must explain why he has enrolled his ward in a private SHS rather than a public one,” Dr Apaak said.

“If confirmed, then the Minister’s move means while shouting from rooftops that the free SHS programme is the best thing to have happened to Ghanaians the last four years, he and others in government on the quiet know the programme is unwholesome for Ghanaian students with its attendant challenges such as inadequate space, overburdened teachers and non-teaching staff, inadequate and unwholesome food, erratic and haphazard academic calendar, double-track system and culture of silence. These are the reason why he will enroll his son attend a private school instead of a public one. He has lost the moral right to champion a programme he doesn’t have faith in and ought to do the needful by stepping aside” the Builsa South MP added

But reacting to this, the minister said his ward was too young to be admitted into a secondary school.

He said politics has taken a new low and his son should never be part of his political career.

“Secondly, I don’t have a son who is old enough to be in a senior high school. So suffice it to say that I have no further comments. My son is not old enough to be in a senior high school. We have the best senior high schools in the public sector,” he added.