Government’s approach to free SHS wrong – Okoe Vanderpuije

Member of Parliament for Ablekuma South, Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije, has said the government was implementing the free Senior High School (SHS) policy wrongly.

Yes, it’s constitutional that we allow our children have access to free SHS, no one is against that but the way they (government) are implementing it is not helping, he told Accra-based Neat FM in Twi.

He said politicians under the current administration would have lost their jobs were they in the United States.

He further stated that the shift system introduced under the free SHS does not allow students to access the required contact hours with their teachers.

He said this limits the quality of education.

We are short-changing our children because they are home most of the time. Also when they end the shift and go back to school how many children are in the classroom? We started the shift so that the children would have access to quality education, he said.

The government should have built temporary structures across the country if they want to do effective free SHS to create space for the children to spend their full structural hours in school, he added.

He cautioned the government to create initiatives that will solve problems rather than those that create more problems.

Why can’t we implement comprehensive programmes? Why are we frustrating our children? Our children are not getting good, quality education. Government could have started with proper consultation then we wouldn’t have started this at all, he stressed in Twi.

Source: Myjoyonline.com