The Education Manifesto Chair for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Prince Hamid Armah says that the party’s greatest achievement is expanding access to secondary education from 800,000 to 1.4 million students.
He explained that, secondary education is crucial for improving a young person’s life opportunities and for transitioning to tertiary education and the workforce.
Dr Armah noted that, the NPP views secondary education as a fundamental foundation for everyone. He added that before the NPP came into office, the transition rate from Junior Secondary School to Secondary School was very low.
Speaking on JoyNews AM show, Dr Armah said, “You had not more than 60% of our young people finishing Junior Secondary School and being able to access Senior Secondary School.”
“Each year, almost 100,000 young people who finish BECE are unable to go to secondary school. If you go back 10 years, there would be about 1 million children in a generation who never had the opportunity to attend secondary school due to various reasons, including financial barriers and policy issues. So, it is a very big achievement.”
Dr Armah said the expansion has also positively affected tertiary education enrolment.
He said that when the NPP came to office, tertiary enrolment was about 430,000 and has now increased to around 700,000, nearly doubling the previous number.
“The impact this will have on the economy is enormous. When the human resource capacity of your country improves, you will appreciate its effect on various sectors of the economy.”