The acute challenges that plagued the implementation of the free SHS education had been anticipated, the Minister of State in charge of Education, Professor Kwesi Yankah has said.
“I don’t see these are problems that were not anticipated. We anticipated them,” he noted.
Significant anomalies overwhelmed the implementation of the policy and the internet-based Computerised Selection Placement System Centre, forcing the education Ministry to extend the deadline to September 30, 2017.
This led educationist, Samuel Zigah to advocate for the suspension of the computerized placement system in order to curb the nightmare prospective students will be facing in the future.
Professor Yankah, however, believed such a call is far fetched, assuring that a number of measures had been instituted to arrest future challenges.
“The NPP government promised to start in the 2017 academic year, they have done, they could have just decided to wait till 2019, a year before the next election and decided to just throw in a fluke or red herring, attracted all the votes they would have wished and then left whatever problems and challenges that come in the wake of the new policy for any other government that care to continue but they said, wait, let’s just take off, there are bound to be glitches here and there,” he told Accra-based Citi FM Wednesday September 13, 2017.
“Within a year or so, we probably think the glitches and challenges would have cured and then while we are in government we then fix the problem so that from the beginning and the end of the cycle it is NPP government. We will confront the challenges and fix them before if we are asked to leave the scene by the people, we do so,” he added.
Officially launching the policy, president Akufo-Addo served notice that the ruling government’s flagship policy—the Free SHS—will never be a failure.
“We may falter but we shall not fail,” he opined at the official launch ceremony at the West African Secondary School (WASS) at Adenta in Accra.
He continued that the policy is not about the NPP and the NDC and that it should be embraced and supported by all to succeed, saying “We are ready to accept in all humility inputs and criticisms.”
Under the Free SHS policy second cycle students in boarding houses will receive three meals a day while day students receive a meal a day.
