Free SHS; A springboard for intellect or a lab for breeding half-baked educated people?

The issue of free Senior High School (SHS) has been on the discussion tables across the country, even in every bedrooms. Couple’s decision to add up new offspring to the population has been based on whether they can take care of all the children or the government will make it easier through the policy at the SHS Level. This topic has warmed up on the political touchlines since 2008.

The idea had to be quenched and buried in two-four year terms when the electorates rejected the NPP, the spearheads of the policy and their flag bearer, Nana Addo Dankwah Akkuffo-Addo in the 2008 and 2012 general election.

There has since been a sharp division in the applicability and the possibility of the rolling-out of the policy. The NPP has yelled that it is doable and beneficial to a country like Ghana whereas the NDC initially argued that it was never possible and then later threw in the quality question.

Finally, the electorates agreed to give the NPP and their presidential candidate (who was at this time beyond the 70 year old mark) the last chance to redeem their promises including free SHS by voting massively for them in 2016.

Voting for a much older candidate could be the test of the old age adage “what an elder sees sitting cannot be sensed by a younger person even if he climbs onto the apex of the tallest tree in the world”.

On September 11, 2017, the free SHS campaign finally came to an end when the president launched it on the WASSCE school premises in Accra to pave way for full implementation across all public senior high schools in the country.

This was met with funfair all over the motherland except the few who openly admitted that, they will never take their children to public senior high schools even if they are accepted into the best.

Please, don’t ask me their reasons because I am as lost as you for whatever reasons that would be. It was interesting to see first year SHS students, mostly early teenagers, walking and being driven into schools with smiles on their faces.

The radiance on their parents and benefactors faces were even much brighter than the early morning sunrise in Bolga. It was the same in the crème de la crème of the schools and the most dejected schools in the hinterlands. Joy of ‘free-dom’ should be nice, no matter where it takes place, I have learnt.

At this same time, some school administrators had to face the sword of Ghana Education Service (GES) after parents bemoaned the collection of some sort of money, no matter the purpose, when the ‘free’ trumpet had been sounded.

Over subscription of students into some schools and the craze for boarding status really made the first week of the free SHS implementation a daily discussion on the airwaves. I anticipated that though, I can’t speak for the implementers about how they prepared for those shocks.

Now, schools have started serious academic work. Maybe not! Whatever the case, it is time to look into the future! The major question is, aside the sustainability of the program, what will be the quality of the education system and the products who graduate out of it?

It is an open secret in Ghana that, cheaper or free things are of the least quality. It is very hard to erase this kind of thinking from my grandmother’s mind. I know it is the same with my good friend, Anchaba.

It is therefore imminent to spend time to decide which one we are making this time; free and good or free hence free of any good. What is imperative now is to put aside the unguided political praises and antagonism.

Rather, the policy implementers should make it clear how they intend to make the education obtained through the program the best and the students going through it will be as qualified as students of the same level from anywhere else in the world. Ghana is not the only country to make education free.

Countries such as our own Mauritius does not only provide free education from primary to high school, transportation is also free for all students. Other third world and emerging economies such as Trinidad and Tobago, Brazil, Argentina, Fiji, Uruguay, Sri Lanka and so forth are executing free education.

Free education in each case may mean one thing in one of the countries but not same in another. Countries that have made education free even up to doctoral level have not compromised on quality. Admittedly, it will be unfair to compare the free education systems in the western welfare states especially the Nordic countries because that might look like rocket science to many people.

It is important to state that, the Scandinavian countries though provide education free of charge for all citizens and in many cases, to foreign students, they are almost always on top of world ranking of educational quality. It is now a known phenomenon to find Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland (all Nordic Countries) in the world 15 best educated.

Therefore, our local theory of free equal sub-standard is false. Free education at any level is not vague and empty after all. It can actually be a tool to make better educated citizens based on the national focus and interest.

But, wait, we are talking about Ghana. A country where political pragmatism sit high above national interest. That is my greatest fear. It is fearful than how death threatens nonagenarians.

Once upon a time, three years of SHS was changed to four years. Behold, when government changed, it was reversed to three years again. Did anyone evaluate the difference before taking the politically motivated decision, I have no idea.

In such an unstructured systems where whims and caprices are displayed, it is woefully gravious to stretch the neck to argue that free will be equal to quality. The reversal of this thinking will largely be premised on commitment from governments of today and years to come.

The last thing we need is hundreds of thousands of young people coming out of high schools annually with a tag of ‘beneficial graduates of free SHS’ who cannot do anything and know nothing.

The strength should be directed at ensuring that, each pesewa spent on the Ghanaian teenager through education, whether fully free or subsidized, should end up making such a child better and useful for him/herself and the country as a whole. Without this and other targets being in place, we should declare the policy as causing financial loss to the state.

Funds should be sent promptly and used for the purpose for which it is sent to make academic work easy. Laboratories and workshops should be stocked with all relevant equipment, apparatus and materials.

Teachers should be committed to the careers they have taken. If government fulfills its part of their employment agreement, they (teachers) should not make outrageous demands that will be seen as taking the system hostage.

Physical and technological infrastructure must be continuously improved to meet modern educational requirements. Most importantly, parents should actively play their roles by providing the needed support for their wards in order to make them psychologically fit for the lifelong educational journey.

Free SHS is here to stay, I guess. Let’s come back in five years to do critical analysis when the first batch would be in the tertiary institutions.

The writer is a PhD student (Urban and Development) Sociology
Tallinn University, Estonia
[email protected]