Government reviewing free SHS – GES Director-General

The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Prof. Kwasi Opoku Amankwah, has disclosed that the government is currently reviewing the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) policy.

According to Prof Opoku Amankwah, the review is to determine which benefits of the Free SHS will be relinquished by the government and transferred to parents to pay, myjoyonline.com reports.

“…we can do the analysis and then come up and say that, ok, to give Raymond quality education, it will cost this much. Within that cost, these are the items in the cost.

“Then we will all put it out there and say this item, we can make do of it, and it will not affect quality, this item, I think we can get parents to pay,” he told the host of JoyNews Upfront programme, Raymond Acquah.

Many stakeholders in the educational sector in Ghana, including teachers and headmasters, have called for a review of the policy, but the government has been adamant.

The Ministry of Finance, in a statement earlier this month, indicated that the Free SHS policy would not be affected despite the fact that the government is seeking an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout.

“Free SHS, the School Feeding programme, among others, are good social intervention programmes and it is the lack of financing and unsustainable debt burdens that could constrain a government’s ability to maintain its level of spending, including social or investment spending.

“In our situation, the IMF may ask Ghana to consider curtailing lower priority or non- productive spending (such as “white elephant” projects) as part of its fiscal adjustment but to preserve priority social spending, including on health and education,” parts of the statement said.