{"id":340499,"date":"2017-07-29T16:11:22","date_gmt":"2017-07-29T16:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=340499"},"modified":"2017-07-29T16:11:22","modified_gmt":"2017-07-29T16:11:22","slug":"free-shs-policy-not-comprehensive-ppp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/07\/free-shs-policy-not-comprehensive-ppp\/","title":{"rendered":"Free SHS policy not comprehensive – PPP"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Progressive Peoples\u2019 Party (PPP) has criticized the government\u2019s flagship educational policy, Free SHS<\/strong><\/a><\/span>, arguing that it is not comprehensive.<\/p>\n According to the party, the policy, which is aimed at making Senior High School education in public schools free will not address the key issues on education.<\/p>\n [contextly_sidebar id=”yJmmnuSQxPvx6YNImtQ93iYqNFg98XM0″]Speaking on Citi FM<\/strong>\u2019s news analysis program, The Big Issue, the Director of Operations of the party, Nana Ofori Owusu suggested a better policy would have been one that addressed the backlog of Junior High School graduates who do not qualify to enter Senior High School.<\/p>\n \u201cThis Free SHS is not comprehensive enough. The problem is from the JHS level. We are filtering our children. You give them a BECE exam and half of the people fail; about 200,000 children per annum are not able to move to the Senior High School level. What do we do as a nation in our public education system for this people. We have not addressed this issue. In five years, 1 million children [who didn\u2019t go to SHS]. That issue has not been touched so it is an intentional policy to deprive children of the opportunity to move on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Minister of Education, Mathew Opoku Prempeh at a press conference on Friday said the Free SHS program will cover only students in SHS and it will ensure that government absorbs the full cost of education<\/strong><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n