Free SHS: Stakeholders Eye Stronger Consultation In Bid To Improve Critical Policy
President John Mahama has given assurance that the controversial free SHS policy will remain as his administration begins office. The Mahama administration also said consultations to improve the policy would take place
The Free Senior High School policy is considered one of the successes of the much-criticised Akufo-Addo administration.
Yet even that did not stop it from being beleaguered by scandal and controversy brought on by infrastructure and feeding challenges.
Source: Facebook
From students being fed with expired food, weakening of Parent Teacher Associations and compromised academic calendars, a number of occurrences have made it clear the policy is still suffering from growing pains despite being implemented since 2017.
A key promise of President John Mahama is to organise a national stakeholder engagement on education to address pressing matters in the sector, including free SHS within his first 100 days in office.
With schools reopening in the last week, one thing has been clear: schools want the parents to do more heavy lifting when it comes to feeding students.
The Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools has encouraged parents to provide their children with enough food provisions for school amid the consistent food shortages that have rocked schools.
The President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Carbonu, said the quiet part out loud by simply proposing that parents with wards in senior high schools should pay for feeding and accommodation for their children.
Some parents are known to incur heavy costs despite secondary education being free on paper. Education think tank Africa Education Watch found that the government is spending GH¢2,385 on the wards while the parents are spending GH¢4,000.
It has been clear the government cannot sustainably cover the cost of feeding students.
"The current model of financing,i.e., through the Government of Ghana and Annual Budget Funding Amount) is exerting considerable financial pressure on the government," said Divine Kpe, Africa Education Watch's senior programme officer.
He stressed to YEN.com.gh that the country needs to look elsewhere for solutions that will not create an additional financial burden.
For Kpe, ensuring a sustainable funding source for implementing the Free SHS policy should be a priority.
He believes it is imperative that the national stakeholders engaged in education arrive at a consensus on an alternative funding approach.
Private schools ready to help Free SHS
The Free SHS policy ushered in a period of hardship for several private schools that lost prospective admissions because of the option of free education.
After eight years, Obenfo Nana Kwasi Gyetuah, the National Executive Director of the Ghana National Council of Private Schools, said the challenges facing private schools have deepened.
He was critical of the Akufo-Addo administration for sidelining his cohort, saying that they had treated private schools badly.
Gyetuah believes leveraging private schools and their infrastructure could benefit not only the educational institutions he advocates for but also the Free SHS policy as a whole.
He is ready to propose such a collaboration between the state and private schools during the national stakeholders' engagement on education.
"As we speak now, the government will not be able to use two to four years to fix the infrastructure challenges Free SHS is facing.”
Free SHS: the feeding conundrum
At the stakeholder forum, talk about decentralising the feeding of students is expected to feature prominently.
The National Secretary of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools, Primus Baro, attributed the shortages and delays in food supply recorded under the policy to the centralisation of food supply.
He told Citi News that the situation was so urgent that it could lead to the closure of schools.
"We are saying that allow the schools to do the procurement, and then we buy the food items from within our environment."
Gyetuah backs such calls and has noted that leveraging the communities around schools is one solution to the feeding challenges.
He even suggested making the most of school lands to start bark yard school farms to supplement school feeding where possible.
"Why don’t we link up with community farmers and give them some soft loans for them to be able to farm these produce for us?”
In the drive to develop the policy, it ultimately appears that some compromise will have to be reached to ensure that students as a whole do not continue to suffer the policy's growing pains.
Like NAGRAT, Kpe expects that some parents will have to contribute to funding the education many Ghanaians hope would remain free.
"But I must be honest with you, any other funding approach that does not include parents who can afford the cost of secondary school education for their wards, paying some amount of money for their wards’ education, wouldn’t be sustainable enough."
New feature: Сheck out news that is picked for YOU ➡️ click on “Recommended for you” and enjoy!
Source: YEN.com.gh
