FREE SHS: Visionary Policy But…

Dr. Kwame Nkrumah has been the first president who started the free education from the formerly elementary school through to the Secondary and the Technical schools to Universities.

Most of the leaders in the country who had their secondary school in the mid-1960s benefited from such free elementary and secondary school education.

However, this education policy was overthrown together with Nkrumah government in the year 1966 coup.

Since the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah, our education has passed through many hands of governments till the civilian government under ex- President Rawlings in the year 1996 who implemented the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE).

Ex-President Mahama also started some secondary education policy called the Progressively Free Secondary School Policy by building the E-Block school facilities and admitting a high number of students into the Teacher Training Institutions, Colleges of Education and the school of education at the University level.

Unfortunately, his government was voted out from power in the 2016, general elections, so his idea and vision to implement the progressively free secondary education also came to a halt.

President Akufo-Addo, the then presidential candidate for the in 2016 made the Free SHS his flagship political campaign message. Since the campaign message was a social intervention programme, the citizens, and the electorates bought into the message and voted massively for him that made him emerge victorious in 2016, general elections.

I will say President Akufo-Addo is one of the courageous and visionary leaders to implement the Free Senior High School Policy to fulfill the promise he made to Ghanaians before the 2016 elections.

However, the Free SHS Policy Implementation as a visionary policy was poorly implemented in a hasty manner and without proper consultation of stake holders.

Per Article 25(1) “all persons shall have the right to equal educational opportunities and facilities, and with a view to achieve the full realization of that right;

Basic education shall be free, compulsory, and available to all;

Secondary education in its different forms including technical and vocational education shall be made generally available and accessible to all by every appropriate means, and in particular, by the progressive introduction of free education.”

As enunciated in Article 25(1) of the 1992 senior high education should be made accessible and available to every citizen of Ghana. It should not have been a campaign policy before it could be implemented.

This policy should have been implemented by previous governments, but unfortunately it has not been so till the Akufo-Addo government came to power. I laud his government implementing this courageous and visionary social intervention policy.

But the policy is poorly implemented, rushed, improperly planned and without proper consultation with various stakeholders.

Parents, students, teachers and the entire populace were not well-educated on how the policy was going to be funded and implemented.

The government did not do due diligence by consulting educationists on how such social interventions policy should be properly implemented for it to run smoothly and successful.

In accordance with the educational rights as captured in the constitution, the implementation should be done progressively. This means there should be enough facilities, teachers, and funding to make the implementation a successful one and not in rush and in haste as it was implemented.

There is always a saying, “if you fail to plan, then you definitely plan to fail” but in the situation of this Free Senior High School Policy implementation, I refer to it as “if you fail to plan, you invite problems and difficulties for yourself”.

Most of the senior high school on the double track system got congested even on the double track.

Due to the lack of proper planning, the implementation was heavily confronted by inadequate classrooms, dormitories and various kinds of accommodation problems.

In most of the schools on the double track system, students slept on verandas, under trees, classrooms, and canteens. Students struggle to get desks to sit on during class hours and forced to either sit in threes and fours on single desks.  Some are made to bring chairs from their houses.

A student who has absolutely no problem with hearing or speaking was strangely placed in a deaf, and dumb school. The parents had to fight for it to be changed. The only option provided for the young girl, and her parents was to place her in a day school at Central Region meanwhile her parents live in Kumasi.

It got to a time that teachers do not know how the policy is going to be implemented and how the double track system is going to function. A teacher at the senior high school, said as at the time, I was speaking to him that school has resumed and does not know whether he is on the gold or green track.

Now to the issue of students that will be churning out from the senior high school as graduates and beneficiaries of the free senior high school, will they be equipped with the necessary knowledge they are supposed to gain at that level? Since they spend more time home than in school.

Are we just looking out for the quantity or the quality?

 

The author, Michael Kenetey Kofi is a Bachelor Of Arts in Communication Studies Student at the Ghana Institute Of Journalism, Accra