Free SHS should be reviewed – Boakye Agyarko

Former Minister for Energy, Boakye Agyarko, has added his voice to calls for the review of the Free SHS policy.

According to him, he is of the view that parents should be allowed to take some of the cost of their ward’s education, especially in regards to uniforms and books, while the government takes the cost of tuition, which is more expensive.

Speaking in an interview with Okay FM, he said,

“We could say parents should take part of the cost and government should also take part. We could have allowed final-year students to be covered under the free SHS.

“I think there should be cost sharing. We can’t leave everything to the government. We need to consider the cost so that parents should know how expensive it is to raise a child. Government shouldn’t cover everything. Tuition is the major cost element but something like books and uniforms should be covered by the parents,” He said.

One of the NPP’s flagship programmes that has caused a lot of controversy has been the introduction of the Free SHS.

Free SHS, which is one of the NPP’s main political promises, was launched in September 2017 by President Akufo-Addo.

Following the implementation, there have been calls for the policy to be reviewed as many believe that the flagship programme has stretched the economy, seeing that the government allocates about GH¢7.5 billion every year to the programme.