Let The Free SHS Begin!

It is refreshing to note that at long last the free SHS promise is going to be made good.

As a flagship project of the government of President Akufo-Addo and his party the New Patriotic Party (NPP), it is our take that all the necessary ingredients are provided to reduce the hitches, which usually accompany novelties of such national character.

They said it was only a campaign gimmick, nowhere near being implemented, but now everybody, indeed even propagandists on the side of the largest opposition party, cannot doubt the authenticity of the initiative.

Why is the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) disturbing our peace of mind with all the negative projections about the free SHS?

Didn’t they tell us it was their policy and that Mr. Mahama had started that because it was a good idea? Can they wait for the Free SHS to start and see if indeed it will work at all?

Why all these negative presumptions? Are they getting uneasy because of votes?

The number of kids who fall out at the end of their JHS education and unable to move to the SHS level is enormous and worrying. It is the reason all Ghanaians who are stakeholders in this matter must support the initiative, regardless of their political affiliations. Ghana comes first before our political affiliations so we must do away with the pettiness all in the name of partisan politics.

DAILY GUIDE recalls with pain the efforts by some Ghanaians to derail the project and wondered how some of us can be so mean in the name of politics.

We have come a long way from independence that children roaming the streets, for want of financial support, should be anathema.

The initial hiccups, which would be experienced when the project is launched, should provide us with important lessons for fine-tuning.

Such challenges should not be used to castigate officials at the forefront of the implementation of the project.

The initiative is too critical for our human resource development that we must ensure its success; come what may. Indeed, we can make it shine and become a source of admiration for other African countries.

Finland, which is benefitting from the dividends of education, is a shining example of how education can ensure the growth of a nation even in the absence of natural resources.

Overlooking this crucial subject would not be in the interest of our development even as we strive to hit this mark and all the attributes associated with this status.

There are bad nuts among us who rather the project fails.

Such persons would resort to varied ploys as means of throwing spanners into the wheels.

We ask that the eyes of the Ghana Education Service be riveted on schools with the view of finding those who would want to tread on this tangent.

Help desks should be created in the various districts where parents who encounter deliberately created challenges can go for redress.

Those found to have hindered the success of the project must be named, shamed and sanctioned.