The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has rejected false claims that the government cannot support the Free Senior High School policy, and used the occasion to assure Ghanaians that the biggest social intervention initiative by any government since independence would not be touched.
“The proponents of expenditure cuts point to the economy and argue that the economy cannot support the Free Senior High School education programme. They argue that cancellation of the free SHS and many others will save the country billions of Ghana cedis that could be invested in better productive areas. I reject as false the argument that our economy cannot support these programmes,” he added.
The Vice President made this known in a speech read on his behalf by the Senior Advisor to the President, Mr. Yaw Osafo Maafo, at the opening ceremony of the 2022 edition of the Annual National Education Week in Accra, under the theme: “Re-Assessing Educational Policies for Effective Service Delivery and National Transformation.”
According to Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, government continued to contribute to the largest portion of education expenditure, saying that this administration spent on average between 4.5% – 4.6% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and between 17.6% – 24% of its national budget on education from 2019 to 2021.
“The share of government expenditure in education increased marginally from 73.4% in 2019 to 74.0% in 2020,” the Vice President stated.
He suggested that the debate should not be whether our public expenditure was too high or too low, but instead whether or not these programmes contributed to the welfare of Ghanaians and are essential for our national transformation.
He emphasised that the Free SHS promotes access to secondary education, and its enrollment increased from less than 900,000 students in the 2016/17 academic year, to more than 1.2 million in 2020/21.
The deputy Education Minister, John Fordjor, in a brief remark, stated that his outfit had the sole responsibility of contributing to the desired national transformation by recognising the strengths and weaknesses of the current system.
Also, going a long way to prescribe strategies to address the challenges in order to give every Ghanaian child the opportunity to succeed, and contribute to national development in order to give every Ghanaian child the opportunity to succeed and contribute to national development.
For this to be successful, he added that strategic policies must be developed and re-assessed periodically for effective service delivery.
“We, as stakeholders within the sector, need to delve deeper into the various government policies, programmes, and projects within the sector, in order to help shape them to achieve the expected outcome,” the Minister indicated.
The celebration brought together members of the Ministry of Education (MoE), Civil Society Organisations (CSO), Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), students from Accra Girls SHS, Kinbu SHS, Legon Presec SHS, Accra High School, Accra Academy SHS, and many others.
