With the perceived confusion over funding for the government’s free Senior High School education policy dominating the news cycle, the New Patriotic Party government needs to\u00a0outline to citizens its priority areas for development, the Operations Director of the Progressive People\u2019s Party (PPP), Nana Ofori Owusu said.<\/p>\n
There was a suggestion from the Senior Minister Yaw Osafo-Maafo that government would consider reviewing the Petroleum Revenue Management Act to allow for the use of the Heritage Fund to finance the\u00a0free SHS\u00a0policy.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”Ftcb6BsiZRH6G2iReCTp6lSIs12pUJ4W”]But the Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, refuted the suggestion,\u00a0saying government would be financing the free SHS policy without touching the Heritage Fund.<\/p>\n
Speaking on The Big Issue<\/strong>, Mr.\u00a0Ofori Owusu viewed this as symptomatic of the lack of engagement and clarity with stakeholders on the part government.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have a limited allocation of resources and in the limited allocation of resources, you must give us the priority areas, and with the priority areas, there is the allocation thereof in pursuit of that.”<\/p>\n \u201cGovernment must give us\u00a0its\u00a0priority areas.\u00a0Government\u00a0must give us a road map. If you don\u2019t give a road-map for citizens to understand where it is you want to go, and for us to also create a culture to support where you want to go, you will have problems.\u201d<\/p>\n With this in mind, Mr.\u00a0Ofori Owusu said the discussion on funding for the Free SHS policy would be mute if it was not tied to an overarching policy of development.<\/p>\n \u201cFor me, the issue of SHS is just a tiny drop in the bucket of the total reformation process of our education\u2026 To me, the focus should not be on a Heritage Fund per say. The focus should be on what the total reformation policy of\u00a0government is; and what is the\u00a0road-map in achieving that particular policy.\u201d<\/p>\n Free SHS a political gimmick<\/strong><\/p>\n Mr.\u00a0Ofori Owusu also expressed some cynicism with what he called the\u00a0politicization\u00a0of education, as he suggested that the promise of Free High school education was only a ploy for votes.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you know why people talk about SHS? It\u00a0is because they think SHS people can vote. You see how politicians have taken education and\u00a0politicized\u00a0it. They are looking at SHS students because they think that if they make it free for SHS students, some of them aged 18 and 19 can vote.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo it is a voting mindset that we are using to fix an\u00a0education\u00a0system that begins at pre-school. If you have 1.5 million young people on the street as a result of not passing the BECE exams, I don\u2019t see how the free SHS will solve the problem. It is for those who pass.\u201d<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By:\u00a0Delali\u00a0Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the perceived confusion over funding for the government’s free Senior High School education policy dominating the news cycle, the New Patriotic Party government needs to\u00a0outline to citizens its priority areas for development, the Operations Director of the Progressive People\u2019s Party (PPP), Nana Ofori Owusu said. There was a suggestion from the Senior Minister Yaw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":295474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[58,10,11],"tags":[253,3,4096,56,3033],"yoast_head":"\n