Cancel Free SHS – Educate Africa Institute

An education policy think tank; Educate Africa Institute has called for a total cancellation of the government’s flagship policy, Free Senior High Secondary School (Free SHS).

According to the policy think tank, the government must be bold to cancel the policy and come out with an improved scholarship scheme to cushion the impoverished students in the country.

This, the institute explained must be done devoid of partisanship to fine-tune the policy.

According to the Chief Executive Officer of the Educate Africa Institute, William Boadi, “If it cannot be cancelled it must be reviewed to meet the needs of students and the teachers in the education sector.”

He made this call while reacting to the Director General of the Ghana Education Service(GES), Prof Opoku Amankwa’s claim that the government is reviewing the policy to see what cost can be borne by parents as part of the sustainability of the Free SHS policy.

Speaking in an interview with Kwame Obeng Sarkodie host of the Ghana Yensom morning show on Accra 100.5 FM on Monday 25, 2022, he said “let not people get me wrong, I loved the policy because it has nothing to do with discrimination when it comes to accessing education in the country… but the government is not able to finance the policy hence the challenges facing the policy.”

He maintained that the policy is a laudable one but it is fraught with challenges because of the lack of consensus in the implementation of the policy.

There must be access to quality education and being cheap for all must also be a guiding principle, he noted.

He added that the way and manner the policy was implemented was the problem.