Govt goofed in procuring past questions for SHS finalists - Prof Opoku-Agyemang

National Democratic Congress(NDC) running mate Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang has condemned the concept of providing students with past questions to improve their performance.

According to her, government needs to supply learning materials to students as well as expand infrastructure in schools. These, she believes will contribute significantly to improved performance.

She made these statements during her working visit to IMANI Africa.

“We are going to improve students' performance by buying past questions. No! I take serious exception to that. We are going to do it by building the children up, by supporting the teachers and by putting the methods there for strict supervision and accountability”.

Prof Opoku-Agyemang added that the vision of the NDC is to win back the confidence that parents have in the country’s education system.

In 2019, the Ghana Education Service procured 400,000 sets of past questions and distributed them to the first batch of beneficiaries of the Free Senior High School Policy.

Meanwhile, vice president of IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil, also said the implementation of the free Senior High School programme is collapsing Ghana’s economy.

“When Free SHS came up, we were the only group that possibly advanced the argument against it and people misconstrued it. We are not against Free SHS but the whole idea does not implement itself.

“If you want free SHS reaching everybody, the structure of operation will determine whether or not it will work. What was done with free SHS is not going to be the best. The truth of the matter is, free SHS is killing the economy,” he explained.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) says it will expand the reach of the Free Senior High School programme to cover private schools if it is voted into power in the upcoming general elections.

The Free SHS programme has been a flagship policy of the current New Patriotic Party(NPP) administration which has substantially increased enrollment in senior high schools.

Former President John Dramani Mahama has publicly communicated his commitment to review the police if given the nod in the polls.