Education think tank, Africa Education Watch (EduWatch), has stated that the objective of the Free Senior High School Policy would not be achieved if the policy is not reviewed.
This follows EduWatch’s ‘Financial Burden Analysis of the Free SHS Policy and Implications on Equitable Access, suggesting that parents opting to have their children reside in the boarding house should be responsible for covering the associated fees.
Eduwatch also urged the government to target the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy at children from poor households using data from the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme as a point of entry. It explained that under the LEAP programme, the government currently had a database of over 346,019 poor households across the country based on which cash grants were dispensed bi-monthly as stipends.
In an interview on Citi Breakfast Show on Citi FM with Bernard Avle on Tuesday, February 27, 2024, the Executive Director of the Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, explained that the policy will be sustained, although the objectives wouldn’t be achieved if it is not reviewed.
He emphasised that reviewing the policy as suggested will help reduce the financial burden to allow the government to fund the policy fully.
He said, “If we keep the policy as it is, the policy will be sustained, but in terms of its objective, its objective will continue to wane because the equitable objective will be waning, and we will be getting to a point where the poorest of the poorest will continue to be poor, and the numbers will increase.”
He added, “Again, if we maintain the policy, even at a point where the government can fund only 70 percent of the policy, it has crowded out significantly, funding available to basic education and so even at the point of inadequate financing, the policy is already causing incongruous effects in the resource allocation within the educational sector and so the need for equitable funding is not only built on the fact that we must spend more by targeting poorer households.”
——————–
Explore the world of impactful news with CitiNewsroom on WhatsApp!
Click on the link to join the Citi Newsroom channel for curated, meaningful stories tailored just for YOU: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaCYzPRAYlUPudDDe53x
