NDC USA: Who advised the NPP about their free SHS now policy?

Ghanaians need to know!

In recent times Prof. Ameyaw-Ekumfi, an educational professional and a

minister for Education during the NPP led administration has stated that the

NPP's educational policy of free Senior High School (SHS) was an approach

taken after it was researched and recommended by some unnamed and faceless

think-tanks. The NDC-USA calls on the NPP to reveal to the world and the

people of Ghana which think-tanks recommended that this would be the best

policy to approach the problems Ghana faces in the educational sector. It is

essential that more information about this is made available, since the free

SHS is emerging as the most ridiculous position a political party has taken

since the late Dan Lartey's position on domestication as a solution for

every problem facing Ghana.

The NDC USA challenges the NPP to 'out' these think-tanks, in order that

these phony institutions can explain to the world and their financiers how

they arrived at this recommendation. The needs of Ghana's educational

sector are many and they are indeed serious, professionals such as Prof. Ameyaw

Ekumfi and these anonymous think-tanks are clearly aware of these

challenges, they are also very well informed of the injury a nation incurs in the

medium to long-term when such problems continue to persist, yet they advised

a major political party to take the tack of promising free SHS as if it is

the panacea to the problems facing Ghana's educational sector. The sad part

of this story is that there are some university professors in Ghana who,

due to political purposes, are on record of supporting this approach and

have shamelessly written to endorse and promote the obvious election gimmick

to win votes rather than solving the hydra headed problems of Ghana’s

education.

What beats our imagination is this, Why should a government pay for food

and lodging for students who have had the fortune of gaining admission to

institutions of learning it already overwhelmingly supports, while it cannot

even provide school buildings for other deserving students? Why? Every year

in Ghana many deserving students who qualify to be in SHS cannot get

admission because there are no schools to accommodate them! Similarly, Ghana's

universities frustrate thousands of students who qualify to be in the

universities by assigning courses to students on a take it or leave it basis.

Presently a huge percentage of elementary schools lack qualified teachers and

in many communities classes are held under the canopy of trees!

Remarkably there are university dons, fake think-tanks and politicians who

think free SHS is Ghana's best step forward! Where is the data to support

this approach and reasoning? Ghana cannot be handed over to Nana Nana Addo

Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his lettered elite who have shown gross

unconscionable approach and demonstrated intellectual bankruptcy at finding proper

solutions for Ghana’s educational system!

It is obvious to us, NDC USA, that the policy of free SHS was only crafted

as a ploy to hoodwink well-meaning Ghanaians and to create the perception

that the NPP has useful ideas which can begin to compete with NDC's

enviable achievements in the educational sector. In less than four years, the NDC

administration with the mantra of Better Ghana Agenda put up one thousand

and seven hundred Elementary Schools, hundreds of senior high schools and

the two universities! This envious record surpasses the total number of

infrastructure provided by the NPP administration in the previous in eight

years! It is therefore clear that when it comes to solving the problems of the

educational system in Ghana, the good people of Ghana know which party is

paying lip service to get elected and which if given the chance again, will

do something concrete about it!

It is indeed sad that the NPP is purposefully peddling falsehood to win

elections! It is also pitiful that well-educated persons like Dr. Bawumia

would mount platforms and pretend that the solution to Ghana’s educational

sector is in the ballyhooing of a senseless and phony free Senior High School

policy. The NDC USA wishes to reiterate its call for the NPP to announce to

the world which think-tanks concluded that the free SHS is the best policy

at this time for Ghana’s educational system! Should the promise of free

Senior High School precede the needs such as infrastructure, human and other

resources, supplies and equipment that common sense tells us are necessary

for effective, proficient and quality education? The posturing so far on

the free education by the NPP demonstrates amply that the NPP’s ideas to

solving our educational sector problems are behind times, senile, political

gimmick and must be rejected.

Signed

Secretary,

Osborne K. Sam,

NDC-USA