Professor Ivan Addae Mensah, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, has stated emphatically that the free SHS policy needs to be seriously reviewed as he believes the policy is only producing quantity students but not quality students.
According to him, the fact that the bulk of the products of the free SHS program is unable to qualify for entrance into the country’s two finest institutions is a testimonial to its low quality.
“Out of the over 720 senior high schools in the country, only 110 of them have had their students make it to the two traditional medical schools at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and the University of Ghana,” Myjoyonline.com quoted professor Addae Mensah as having said.
The news agency claims that he encouraged the government to concentrate on reproducing what makes the few schools perform well instead of developing STEM schools.
He joins other experts like his colleague, Professor Stephen Adei, an economist and the Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission, who highlighted worry about the economic impact of the plan and asked for its reconsideration.
He said that providing GH₵7.5billion to the Free SHS scheme alone every year is an overstretch of the economy.
He argued for the exemption of certain so-called greatest Senior High Institutions in the nation from the policy so that the affluent parents who send their children to such schools must pay for their education.
“We have to look at it again. I believe that there are some schools that we should make autonomous and fee-paying and people will go there, but then make sure there are decent community schools for everyone else. So the Achimota’s and the Wey Gey Hey’s, which folks want their children to attend, let them pay.
“Only a tiny number of the destitute come to Achimota. Let the affluent go there and pay. Use the Achimota funding to create extremely fine schools in every area so that they can be there and not have to travel. They come from the villages,” Professor Stephen Adei stated.
Source: Mybrytnewsroom/Joseph Asare
