The Deputy Minister of Education, Rev. John Ntim Fordjour says the implementation of the government’s Free Senior High School policy is going on as planned.
He is of the view that the policy has so far been executed creditably.
Mr. Fordjour however said the Ministry is monitoring the policy keenly to address challenges that may arise.
The Assin South lawmaker made this known in an interview with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Face to Face, a current affairs programme which airs on Citi TV every Tuesday at 9pm.
“Free SHS police is under implementation, and it is progressing creditably. The policy is going through implementation processes as planned, and it is going on as expected.”
“It is yielding results, and we are monitoring the implementation every step of the way.”
Also touching on the importance of the policy to persons in the rural communities, he shared his personal experience of how most of his basic schoolmates couldn’t transition into SHS due to financial constraints.
“I always say this story of my personal experience. Believe it or not. I can come from one of the most beautiful remote villages in the country called Assin Kruwa. I was born in that village and I grew up in that village and at the time that I had finished my basic education, there was no access to telecommunication network or electricity.”
“I wasn’t the only brilliant person in that village, though I topped my class. There were other brilliant persons, but I was the only person who could transition to SHS, why because the cost was a huge barrier for the others.”
Free SHS hasn’t compromised quality of secondary education
Rev. John Ntim Fordjour, had earlier rejected claims that the government’s Free SHS policy has affected the quality of education at the secondary school level in Ghana.
According to him, such claims are unfounded and should be disregarded completely.
“I don’t agree that quality has been substituted for quantity with the Free SHS policy because considering all the reports available, (the Annual Performance Report of the educational sector and WAEC 2020), it indicates that the education outcomes have been improving for the past five years steadily, and quality hasn’t been compromised.”
