The Deputy Ranking Member on the Education Committee of Parliament, Dr. Clement Apaak, says the findings of Africa Education Watch (EduWatch) reaffirm calls for the review of the Free Senior High School policy.
The education think tank, in a report, recommended that free boarding secondary education be reserved for students in underserved communities while allowing parents in convenient areas that will opt for boarding for their wards be made to pay.
In an interview with Citi News, the Builsa South MP charged the government to heed to the calls for the policy’s review.
“While the policy is a good one, we must admit that it is facing serious implementation challenges, and if, in spite of these amount of monies, the challenges seem not to go away, then the right thing for us is to take a second look at it, and that is why all stakeholders except the government have been calling for a national stakeholders forum to review the policy with the intent of improving upon it and so I agree with the findings and I was not surprised at all.”
In its ‘Financial Burden Analysis of the Free SHS Policy and Implications on Equitable Access,’ EduWatch among other things, recommended that the policy must target children from very poor families.
“In the medium-to-long-term, the MoE must develop and implement a strategy to gradually transition Ghana’s secondary education system from the current boarding-as-a-norm to day-as-norm. Free boarding secondary education should be reserved strategically for students in underserved communities where there is no reasonable commutable access to a secondary school.
“However, parents, who despite an opportunity for their wards to be day students for free, still decide to opt for boarding status must pay for its full cost.”
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