Last week at an Education summit in the United Kingdom, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo disclosed for the first time that government had plans of replicating the Free Senior High School policy at the tertiary level.
According to the president, the subject of free tertiary education has been discussed at top levels because it is seen as a natural consequence of broadening the base for SHS.
But for musician turned politician, Kwame A-Plus, the announcement is a case of the president taking his “promises” international.
“Chairman take the promising distin go international. He’s making the other presidents look useless for no reason,” he captioned a video in which Akufo-Addo is making a strong case for Free SHS and why government is planning to extend the policy to the next level.
At a point in his first term, the president was referred to by a section of the public as ‘King Promise’ in jest for the many unfulfilled promises that the ruling New patriotic Party and the Akufo-Addo led government had failed to execute.
President defends Free SHS, hints of Free Tertiary in London:
“For now, what has been put in place is a system where students at the tertiary level are provided loans while in school to help them cater for their needs, but we’re considering free Tertiary education too,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo noted that the Free SHS policy has driven up Ghana’s budget for the education sector and that there are plans to invest more in the initiative.
He stated that Free SHS has been a success and handed education opportunities to Ghanaians who would have been left out due to lack of finance.
“It’s one of the highest on the continent, and we intend to ramp it up even more,” the President stated.
Adding that “the policy has reversed decades of exclusion, which denied, on the average, one hundred thousand young men and women, annually, entry to senior high school education because of the poverty of their parents.”
