The Minority Leader of Ghana’s Parliament, Haruna Iddrisu has described as a “hoax” the governing New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) much touted free Senior High School policy which is to be fully rolled out on Tuesday, September 12, 2017.
He opined that government’s “adhoc” implementation of the policy could break down the nation’s educational system.
The Tamale South legislator was addressing a mammoth crowd at the Kulikuli School Park to climax the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) maiden unity health walk held in Tamale and led by former President John Dramani Mahama.
“My message to President Nana Akufo Addo today is a simple but important one that when he goes to bed today he must rethink his free senior high school policy.”
“It is manifested gargantuan failure and our concerns are that we will not sit down for him to jeopardize our youngsters and the future of our country.”
He said “the idea of free senior high school is a noble social and political educational objective but the pursuit of it must be premised on adequate, reliable and sustainable financing and not experimental financing.”
“Just as the NDC did in 1997 following the difficulties encountered financing tertiary education, we built national consensus which resulted in the GETfund establishment,” the minority leader recalled.
He thus advised President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to tread with caution on the free SHS policy implementation. “We are inviting him that we need to dialogue further together as a country towards financing the free senior high school policy in order to safeguard what is currently happening. We know and we say with certainty and without fear and contradiction that he cannot finance it and the economy cannot finance free senior high school education today but it remains a noble social and political objective but we need to be united as a country and determine how to finance it,” he advised Nana Akufo-Addo.
According to him, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo’s administration is in a haste to implement the policy without proper financing.
He served notice that the NDC minority caucus in Parliament will fiercely resist any attempts to implement the policy at all cost for political expediency.
He explained that the NDC as a social democratic party was not against the implementation of the Free SHS policy but insisted that the right structures must be put in place to ensure its sustainability.