President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has admitted that the government’s flagship educational programme, the Free Senior High School Policy, had some challenges at implementation.
He listed logistics, infrastructure, laboratories, classrooms and dormitories as some of the facilities that constituted the difficulties in the takeoff of the programme.
“But everything new when it starts has problem,” he noted.
“But if you don’t start, you can’t progress.”
He, therefore, asked for the support of all Ghanaians to make the programme successful.
President Akufo-Addo made this known while speaking to some chiefs from Bawku in the Upper East Region.
The chiefs led by the President of the Bawku Traditional Area, Naba Asigri Abugurago II, had called on him at the Flagstaff House.
President Akufo-Addo said this year, the Free SHS policy has enrolled 90,000 more students in senior high school than last year.
He observed that for the last five years, 100,000 students each year ended their education at the junior high school level.
Therefore, the policy had ended a trend which was going to see about one million JHS graduates drop out by 2022.
“In today’s world junior high school education is not enough,” he pointed out.
“We have to make sure that everybody gets to at least senior high school”.
‘Not for votes’
President Akufo-Addo expressed determination in making sure the policy works, expressing hope that the teething problems will be solved sooner than later.
“We have taken the first step. The issues about infrastructure, school, classrooms, logistics, we are going to deal with those. But we can only deal with them because we have started.”
He insisted also that the policy’s introduction in September was not for the politics of it.
“It’s not been done for votes. It’s being done for the development of our country.”
Source: 3news.com|Ghana