According to Prof. Kwasi Opoku Amankwah, Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), the government is now evaluating its policy on free senior high schools (Free SHS).
According to Prof. Opoku Amankwah, the evaluation will determine which Free SHS benefits the government will give up and charge parents for, according to myjoyonline.com.
“…we can conduct the investigation and then declare that, yes, Raymond will need to pay this much for an excellent education. These are the goods included in that cost.
“Then we will all put it out there and say this item, we can make do of it, and it will not affect quality, this item, I think we can get parents to pay,” he told the host of JoyNews Upfront programme, Raymond Acquah.
Teachers and headmasters are among the stakeholders in Ghana’s educational system that have urged a reassessment of the program, but the government has resisted.
In spite of the government seeking a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Ministry of Finance stated earlier this month that the Free SHS policy will not be changed.
“Free SHS, the School Feeding programme, among others, are good social intervention programmes and it is the lack of financing and unsustainable debt burdens that could constrain a government’s ability to maintain its level of spending, including social or investment spending.
“In our situation, the IMF may ask Ghana to consider curtailing lower priority or non- productive spending (such as “white elephant” projects) as part of its fiscal adjustment but to preserve priority social spending, including on health and education,” parts of the statement said.