Free SHS Policy Implementation Was Long Behind Schedule

In theory, Prof. George K. T. Oduro is perfectly right in his observation that more planning ought to have been invested in President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s implementation of the fee-free Senior High School System (See “Government Rushed in Implementing Free SHS Policy – UCC Pro-VC” Ghanaweb.com 1/8/18). But in practice, the implementation of the program was long overdue. At least, it was two decades behind schedule. I also don’t see how adequately such a relatively humongous undertaking could have been prepared for. Like any landmark and far-reaching endeavor within the realm of humanity, the best approach was that which was taken by the President.

In other words, unless you actually implement a program, you can never appreciate its shortcomings and inadequacies. And so what you do at the next stage is to invite the experts to facilitate its streamlining. I also agree with Prof. Oduro that parents, especially those in our rural communities, ought to be educated about the part that they need to play in ensuring the success of their children’s education, and such basic parental responsibilities as the provision of school uniforms and sandals, and even such basic learning materials and tools as pens and pencils, notebooks, slates and calculators, since the central government cannot be expected to take care of everything. Indeed, even in advanced economies like the United States, parents have had to chip in regularly with school supplies like homework-assignment folders, notebooks, and writing materials.

The idea, very prevalent in Ghana, that free education means absolutely no parental input, whatsoever, is simply unrealistic. And this may partly be the reason why early in the implementation phase of the problem, some school principals or headteachers got into trouble with school superintendents over the payments of some unauthorized fees that these school heads were accused of having imposed on parents and their children. Fee-free education simply means that the generic or proverbial taxpayer takes care of most of the expenses for public education. It is still working and taxpaying parents who foot the bill; for, ultimately, it is each and every one of us, citizens of Ghana, both at home and abroad, who constitute the government.

Prof. Oduro, who is also the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, the nation’s flagship academy for teachers and educators, knows fully well that if the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had not led the charge by plunging into the implementation process of the fee-free SHS policy initiative, the program would never have been undertaken by the populist-talking but Social Darwinian operatives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the country’s other major political party. It simply would not have happened because the NDC is guided, or rather misguided, by an elitist policy that doggedly and unconscionably promotes the sort of reactionary class-snobbery with which former President John Dramani Mahama met the implementation of the fee-free SHS program last September.

Rather than honestly admit of its gross administrative incompetence, the Mahama Posse decided to vacuously equate the maximization of educational opportunities for all Ghanaian school-age children, without regard to class status or income, as one that automatically meant the precipitous devaluation of the quality of our public school curriculum and instruction. The reality of the matter, though, is that by exposing the greatest number of our children and grandchildren to even the least qualitative of academic and vocational educational experience, opens up the healthy possibility of having a larger pool of talents in our society intellectually and professionally enriched than the status-quo-ante, whereby only the children of the filthy rich and powerful gained access to the comforts of civilized and modern society.

In other words, the wider the pool of tutored talents, the greater the chance and possibility of materially, intellectually and culturally advancing the country to a higher level of civilization and socioeconomic well-being. This is what the operatives of the National Democratic Congress, who have dominated Ghanaian politics for the past 40 years have consistently and perennially shied away from. We saw this abject lack of will and sheer wickedness on the part of the NDC operatives vis-à-vis the implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

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