Akim Swedru Kennedy Nyarko Osei of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has argued that the Government’s flagship policy, the Free Senior High School (SHS), should be limited to pupils who attend public basic schools if the entire program cannot be suspended due to the relief it provides to the country’s poor.
Limiting the scheme to to students who complete their studies at public schools, he believes, will allow the wealthy to pay for their children’s and wards’ SHS education.
“If we are unable to postpone the introduction of FSHS due to the potential negative consequences for the poorest households, I propose that we limit it to just those who attend public elementary schools.” This, I am confident, will allow wealthy and middle-class families to fully assume responsibility for their children’s education,” he said on social media.
His offer comes at a time when the government is struggling to pay for the program’s increasing costs due to serious fiscal issues.
Free SHS, which covers all of a student’s SHS expenditures, has become a huge government expenditure. Some think tanks have criticized the proposal as unsustainable, claiming that executing it in its entirety would tax the government unduly. Despite this, the initiative was implemented in 2017 without any sort of targeting.
However, after the government’s recent financial problems, some prominent members of the administration, like Prof Stephen Adei, have called for a reassessment of the program.
