The Founder and Leader of All People’s Congress (APC), Hassan Ayariga, has lauded the government for introducing the Free Senior High School (SHS) program but he is worried over the compulsory promotion for students who fail in Examination.
He argues that if such a practice of mass promotion of students, including the poorly performing ones is not checked, Ghana would end up producing doctors, nurses, and engineers among others who are not qualified to do such jobs, hence putting the lives of Ghanaians in danger.
Mr. Ayariga said at a press conference organized by the Inter-Party Resistance Against the New Voter Register, a coalition of six opposition political parties that are against the compilation of a new voters’ register for the 2020 general elections.
According to him, the free SHS program was fraught with many challenges, and that since the country did not need any new voters’ register, compiling a new one would only lead to the waste of the country’s resources.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has said the government will only fully fund the education of students over the three-year duration.
This means that students, who are repeated for non-performance, will subsequently have to pay their fees.
According to him, since the package covered each beneficiary for a period of three years, students were expected to bear the responsibility of studying hard and passing their exams; else they risked losing their slots, just as pertains under every scholarship program.
The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has lauded the government’s decision not to cater to students who are repeated because of non-performance in the government’s much-touted Free SHS policy.
According to GNAT, the move will rather spur the children to be more studious vis a vis the program.
Source: Kofi Atakora
