According to the President of the Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT), Ghana, King Ali Awudu, just 20 percent of the money the government allocates for the Free Senior High School (FSHS) policy would be enough to make a substantial difference in the basic education in the country.
“If this government spends just 20% of the amount it spends on free Senior High School education on basic education, the situation would be different,” said Mr. Awudu on TV3’s Hot Issues on Sunday, April 7.
He also criticised the free senior high school policy as being discriminatory in its approach.
Mr Awudu argued that parents should be made to pay for their wards’ boarding house fees under the policy.
“Government spends about five times the money it will spend on those in the boarding house to those it spent on the day school.
“So in this case we are children of taxpayers but a ground has not been given boarding status because there is not enough space and then we are spending more money on those in the boarding school and those that are day [students] that the SHS is supposed to be free, at the end of the day will have to take money every single day from their parents to commute themselves in and out of school.”
“So what we are saying is that if that is the case the boarding should be made payable” Mr Awudu emphasised.
He also cited the government’s ‘One Student, One Tablet’ initiative, which also targeted senior high school students, as another huge investment in the policy.
The government has spent US$112.5 million to procure the first batch of 450,000 tablets to be distributed to senior high school students for phase one of the project.
Overall, government intends to purchase 1.3 million tablets for the students under the Smart School Project.
Meanwhile, the sector minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, told Parliament in March 2023 that the government expended a total of GH¢5.12 billion for the implementation of the free senior high school (SHS) programme between 2017 and 2021.
Source:Fiilafmonline/3News
