The President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Carbonu, is urging the government to reassess its educational flagship, the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy, to address existing challenges and enhance its effectiveness.
This follows calls by various stakeholders for a comprehensive review of the policy, citing persistent difficulties.
During his nationwide tour, former President John Dramani Mahama emphasized his commitment to revisiting the policy should he secure the presidency in the upcoming 2024 elections.
However, Education Minister Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Citi FM, dismissed such calls, asserting that the Free SHS requires targeted improvements rather than an overall review.
“Anything that you do, there will be areas that need improvements. On improvements, we can look to train teachers and make sure that teachers are well prepared to teach for better learning outcomes”, he said.
In an interview with Eyewitness News, NAGRAT’s President emphasized the importance of addressing concerns raised by stakeholders to strengthen the Free SHS program.
“My union has already called for a review of the free SHS programme. For every project you do, you need to subject yourself to periodic reviews, to identify challenges and sharpen the blunt edges for your good. When you get to most of the schools, you have infrastructure and resources deteriorating. One of the reasons the government is unable to bring the double track to an end is that GETFund is not able to put up the facilities as planned. Because the Ministry of Finance is unable to transfer back to GETFund the total amount of GETFund component of taxes and revenues being collected in this country. The funding of free SHS is short-changing something somewhere that is crying for resources. The review will have to be all-encompassing – infrastructure, educational and teaching materials are very important,” he opined.
He further added, “Education is owned by the people, so you bring stakeholders to a forum to jaw-jaw. And come out with an education policy that will inure to the benefit of all. That is the position NAGRAT held, and we have held this position for more than the past 4 or 5 years. Government is for everybody, so we need to listen to all people in this country and come up with an educational policy that is all-encompassing.”
