President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says that the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy, which was put in place by his administration in September 2017, is now making sure that all Ghanaian children get at least a minimum senior high school education.
He says that (5) years after the Free SHS programme was started, which has enabled about 1.6 million Ghanaian children to have at least some Senior High School education, he is very proud of the policy and its results so far.
“Following the implementation of the Free Senior High School policy, which has guaranteed a minimum of Senior High School education for 1.6 million Ghanaian children, I want to state, without any equivocation, that I am very proud of the policy and of its results thus far.”
Speaking at a durbar to climax the 70th-anniversary celebration of the Tamale Senior High School (TAMASCO) in Tamale, he said there have been issues connected with the Free SHS programme, which have been resolved by the government.
The president said he is very sure that critics who described the Free SHS policy as ‘ a waste’ with some also indicating that the policy was going to compromise the quality of SHS education “have eggs on their face now or should have” as none of that has happened.
He said, in 2022, the government intends to extend the Free Senior High School programme to all first-year students enrolled in public Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutes.
He added that “government will continue the programme of implementing the various reforms in projects of the TVET sector including the rehabilitation and upgrading of technical universities, upgrading and modernization of the thirty-four NVTI Centres, retooling of TVET institutes and the establishment of the term state of the Art TVET institutes.”
He added that the construction of twenty (20) Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) centres dotted across the country with all centres at various stages of completion have also commenced.
He further added that six hundred and fifty-seven (657) of the one thousand, one hundred and nineteen (1,119) projects, being constructed under the Free Senior High School Infrastructure Intervention have been completed with two thousand, seven hundred and eighteen (2,718) vehicles procured and distributed to institutions across the country by the Ghana Education Service.
President Akufo-Addo thus urged teachers in all secondary schools in Ghana to create an example worthy of emulation for their students.
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Source: Anthony Sasu Ayisadu/ATLFMNEWS
