The Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu has dismissed claims by former Vice President and New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia that Ghana’s Free Senior High School (Free SHS) programme is in crisis, insisting the policy remains firmly on course under the current administration.
Speaking at the opening of a stakeholder engagement on the implementation of the New Free SHS Policy at Adukrom, Iddrisu said Bawumia’s remarks ignored the programme’s earlier challenges and the corrective steps taken by the government.
“Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia must come to terms when he says that the Free Senior High School is suffering. Maybe to remind him that it was suffering under him and that required us as a government to review the implementation of the Free Senior High School,” the minister stated.
Iddrisu also rejected assertions that students were going without meals, describing such claims as “economically begging the truth.”
He credited President John Dramani Mahama’s decision to uncap the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) with ensuring adequate food supplies across all senior high schools — a situation he said contrasted sharply with the previous eight years of NPP administration.
“These are matters anybody, including parents and students, can verify based on evidence available,” Iddrisu said.
On the issue of tuition, the minister pushed back against suggestions that free education only began under the previous government.
“Throughout history and since independence, free education has been provided at all levels in Ghana. That is fact and that is evidence. Maybe you were probably talking living in another country and not the Ghana he seeks to lead,” he added.
The engagement forms part of ongoing efforts to strengthen the Free SHS policy and address implementation challenges.
Source: Starrfm.com.gh
