An Educationist and Management Expert, Nii Armah Addy has added his voice for the free Senior High school policy to be reviewed to enhance quality and accessibility.
Speaking on A1 Radio’s Reporter’s visit, Mr. Addy said the recent controversies between the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the ministry of education over whether or not the free Senior high school policy should be reviewed is problematic.
It could be recalled that a few days ago the Director General of the Ghana education service Professor Kwasi Opoku – Amankwa in an interview said the GES is reviewing the policy to determine how much parents can pay but the Ministry of Education immediately came out and debunked the claim.
But Nii Armah Addy said the inconsistencies among key stakeholders in education are unfortunate hence it is important the policy should be reviewed immediately.
According to him, the free Senior High School has had many challenges since it started and that is an indication that the policy needs to be reviewed in order to address some of the issues.
“If you ask me I will say that the [Free Senior high school] policy should be reviewed. I mean a couple of months ago, there was confusion between review and cancellation and I though by now understanding would’ve been clear, that cancellation is not the same as review. To review means to change setting aspects of the policy and usually when things change we change for the better.”
“Anybody who is interested in the development of our education or quality of education will tell you that, the quality of the food served in the schools is not good. We don’t have textbooks. We are running shift systems that we try to run away from but we can not run away from it. Go to the schools now, form three’s and two’s are there and the form ones are home.”
“It is nothing but politics of education. It is nothing more than political mathematics of our education where people feel that by giving people free education, no matter how diluted it is, they will return to reward with voting but that is not good. The quality is not good,” he said
He explained that if leadership in the country and stakeholders in education do not do away with politicizing education, it will amount to waste in the system.
Source:A1Radioonline.Com|10.1MHZ|David Azure| Bolgatanga|Ghana
