Seasoned Journalist, Kwesi Pratt Jnr, says the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) shouldn’t think their free education policy is their trump card into the December elections.
The NPP is upbeat about their free Senior High School (SHS) policy giving them victory during the general elections on Monday, December 7.
The party believes, with the successful rollout of the policy, their candidate, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will be granted a second term in office.
But Mr. Pratt has asked the NPP not to bank their hopes on the free education policy.
He explained that free education is not the main incentive to influence the votes of Ghanaians in favour of a particular candidate.
Speaking on Peace FM, he chronicled events in the history of Ghana where political parties promised free education but it didn’t translate into votes.
To him, winning an election has got a lot to do with the choice of the electorate of a suitable candidate than it has to do with who introduced or implemented the free education programme.
“They are the first political party that didn’t only promise but also showed how they were going to raise the money. The Convention People’s Party also brought about this policy in the year 2000 . . . but nobody voted for them. So, when you take a critical look at it, it doesn’t mean necessarily you will be voted for because the pioneers were not even voted for. From the 1950s, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah introduced free compulsory basic education; enrollment in Secondary schools went up about nearly 1000 percent in the space of five years and so on but he was even overthrown,” he said.