The Presidential Candidate of the Liberal Party of Ghana (LPG) in the 2020 Election, Kofi Percival Akpaloo has said his party’s position on the Free Senior High School (FSHS) policy is to run all second cycle institutions as Day schools instead of the current boarding system.
Speaking to Bonohene Baffour Awuah on Ghana Kasa on Kasapa 102.5 FM, Mr. Kofi Akpaloo observed that the day school system would reduce the cost of running senior high schools in the country to the barest minimum.
“For all the public second cycle schools we don’t need boarding,” he said, adding government ought to expand the infrastructure of existing Junior High Schools (JHSs) for students completing to continue their SHS education on the same premises.
He added” And also the way the government is buying school uniforms and other stuff for students across board is not right. The distribution should be done in a selective manner. Thus the government must look out for students whose parents cannot afford to buy them the uniforms and provide for them.
“It should not be wholesale whereby everybody is provided with the school uniform, No! the government must check that. They must go to the villages where poverty is endemic, these are the areas the Free SHS should go to.”
The government has committed to spending more than GHC1.5 billion on educational infrastructure across the country in order to end the controversial Double-track system under the Free Senior High School programme by 2024.
The Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum during a press conference said government is on track to phase out the system.
“We are going to live within the President promise of between 5 and 7 years to eliminate double-track. The President has committed to that and he’s doing that. Talk about infrastructure, GHC1.5billion potentially available for school construction has seen buildings in schools across the country,” he stated.
Meanwhile, a Member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Communication Team, Benjamin Essuman has said that the only way government’s flagship Free Senior High School (FSHS) policy could remain meaningful is a holistic review of the policy.
Mr. Essuman said the Free SHS policy is bedeviled with challenges because the government failed to employ strategic planning with the implementation of the policy.
Source: Ghana/Kasapafmonline.com/Isaac Dzidzoamenu
