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GHC453 Million To Be Spent On FREE SHS This Year

By MyJoyOnline
Education GHC453 Million To Be Spent On FREE SHS This Year
MAY 3, 2018 LISTEN

The government will spend GHS453 million ($103m) of the country’s oil revenue to fund the free senior high school programme this year.

The amount is more than twice the figure it spent on the programme last year, some GHS198 million ($45m).

The Minister of Energy, Boakye Agyarko, disclosed this in Houston, Texas last Tuesday at a special roundtable meeting with some oil giants on the sidelines of the ongoing Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) as he made a strong case for players in the industry to take full advantage of opportunities in the country and invest in that sector.

The free SHS programme is the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP)’s flagship education programme.

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In January this year, the government released GHS35.9 million to cover second term operational and administrative costs for public second cycle schools under the Free SHS programme.

Head of Communications at the Free SHS Secretariat of the Ministry of Education, Josberta Gyan Kwakye, said the amount would cover about 489 schools.

She also explained that the initial 20 percent sent to the schools in September 2017 “was based on raw estimations because as of the time we were releasing the funds, we didn’t have the exact enrollment numbers so it was more of an approximation.”

She said the Ministry has also paid GHc3,392,031 as arrears for 264 schools during the first term.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com additional files from Daily Graphic newspaper

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