In response to criticisms of the challenges facing the Free SHS programme, NPP Member of Parliament for Gomoa West, Alex Abban, has said that it is better for students to sit on bare floor without desks, or study under trees than hawk on the streets without being educated.<\/p>\n
There have been reports of various challenges facing the programme, including reports of infrastructural and feeding problems, inadequate desks forcing some students to sit on bare floor and in some cases cement blocks, due to the high number of nearly 400,000 students that enrolled for the launch in September.<\/p>\n
Students of Parkoso SHS study on bare floor<\/strong><\/p>\n Citi News<\/strong> recently reported about a situation at the Parkoso Community Day Senior High School<\/a><\/strong><\/span> in the Asokore Mampong Municipality of the Ashanti Region, where some students sit on the bare floor for lack of desks.<\/p>\n [contextly_sidebar id=”xGkNea1IHVlwUqt9jgB8CoyPH4H0CEjx”]The Minority in Parliament has on several occasions criticized government for failing to address challenges threatening the programme.<\/p>\n One of those criticisms recently came from former Deputy Minister of Education, Okudzeto Ablakwa, who accused government of allocating very little amount for the Free SHS programme in the 2018 budget.<\/p>\n Reacting to Mr. Ablakwa\u2019s statement, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, a current Deputy Education Minister, said:\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ll rather have children learning under trees than walking on the streets and selling dog chains. I\u2019ll rather have children eating under trees than going hungry\u201d.<\/p>\n Speaking on Citi FM\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0news analysis programme, The Big Issue, <\/strong>the Gomoa West MP\u00a0sided with Dr. Adutwum\u2019s position, saying \u201cI will re \u2013echo the sentiments of the Deputy Minister that he will prefer people sitting on the bare floor and listening to wisdom, getting education so that their minds will be broadened and from there they can get to whatever heights they want to.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Abban indicated that, it will be needless highlighting challenges facing the free SHS programme since in his view, it will amount to nothing if these challenges are resolved and teachers still refuse to play their respective roles.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, when you are sitting in a comfortable place it helps, but I can assure you that if we even bring all the good stuff and the teachers are not delivering what have you achieved?\u201d<\/p>\n The New Patriotic Party (NPP) government\u2019s flagship free Senior High School programme was launched in September 2017, as part of measures to ensure all Ghanaian children are educated, at least, up to the SHS level.<\/p>\n However, since its introduction, the programme that admitted a huge number of about 400,000 students, has encountered a number of challenges.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t run education with voluntary funds\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n The government announced in the 2018 budget, that it would set up a fund to receive voluntary contributions from individuals to support the implementation of the free SHS programme and the educational sector as a whole.<\/p>\n However, this plan has come under fire from the Minority who believe this is an indication that government does not have the funds to properly implement its much-touted programme.<\/p>\n And according to Okudzeto Ablakwa, the government cannot afford to rely on the voluntary funds as a source of funding for free SHS, as projections for those funds may not materialize.<\/p>\n \u201cNo country runs public education on just voluntary funds. What if the Fund is not considered attractive and you don\u2019t really get as much as you are expecting. We can\u2019t leave the destiny of our children\u2019s quality education to just a voluntary fund where we don\u2019t really know the projections. Meanwhile there\u2019s an 800 million-cedi gap as we speak. You\u2019ve only allocated 1.2 billion but you need two billion cedis, at least to sustain free SHS for the 2018 fiscal year,\u201d he argued.<\/p>\n \u201cYou cannot just depend on voluntary funds, you can\u2019t run education that way. You need a concrete plan and you need a well-defined funding source. It\u2019s clear that government is struggling to fund it and struggling to identify a clear funding source.\u201d<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n By: Marian Ansah\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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