Ghana stands to benefit when private schools are included in the free SHS program – Dr Richard Asiedu

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of St. Andrews Group of Schools who doubles as an Executive Member of the Conference of Heads of Private Second-Cycle Schools (CHOPS) Dr Richard Kofi Asiedu has said that the inclusion of private schools in the free SHS policy is one of the means of eradication of unemployment in Ghana since it will liberate the private schools from fear of collapsing due to low intake of students thereby sustaining employment and huge investment in private schools in Ghana.

This will also prevent the current private school employees which include teachers and other staff who are making an immense contribution to the growth of the economy through education from losing their jobs and source of livelihood, thereby contributing to the reduction of unemployment rate ensuring significant growth of the economy.

Stressing on the benefits the nation stand to gain when private schools are included in the Senior high school program, Dr Richard Asiedu said it will reduce the pressure on the government in dealing with the infrastructural challenges facing public senior high schools.

The inclusion of private senior high schools in the free senior high school programme will relieve the government of the expected urgency in the provision of extra infrastructural facilities in the public senior high schools in the short term.

This is because some private senior high schools are well equipped in terms of infrastructure to accommodate students in the boarding houses and also have quality teachers just like the public senior high schools, and therefore have the capacity of providing quality education and contribute immensely towards human capital development in Ghana and the world as a whole.

This can help Ghana achieve greater economic growth, just as empirical work has proven that quality education played an active role in the economic growth and development in many countries in the world.

Furthermore, it will help the government in ensuring fiscal discipline, have ample time to make effective decisions to improve the educational sector and also enable the government to channel funds to other sectors of the economy in order to achieve significant growth in all sectors of the economy. It will also help in eradicating the multi-track system, which the government introduced as a short term measure of dealing with infrastructural challenges among the public senior high schools in Ghana.

Prevention of collapse of private senior high school

Furthermore, the inclusion of private schools in the free S.H.S program will induce the employment of extra teachers by the private school to meet the expected increasing demanding of teachers. This will therefore result in the employment of teachers beyond the 60,000 the Education Ministry has already employed since 2019.

Dr Richard Kofi Asiedu was speaking on Adom Fm’s Dwaso Nsem morning show on the press statement by the Conference of Heads of private Second cycle Schools as it welcomes the manifesto by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), for factorizing the Private Schools in the free SHS program in their manifesto if given the nod rule Ghana in the upcoming December 7 polls.

Dr Osei Yaw Adutwum’s response to the calls by some opinion leaders Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister for Education in charge of General Education, Hon. Yaw Osei Adutwum However, in an attempt to justify the Government’s stance not to include private schools in the Free SHS system, he made several scathing comments about the private schools, saying among other things that “the teachers we have at the private schools do not have the qualification to teach at the public senior high schools and once you are using public money, everything you are doi…