The running mate of the flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Professor Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang says that her party will do better at implementing the free SHS programme.
Professor Naana Opoku-Agyemang was speaking in an interview on Sharp FM on Monday, on the policies and promises of the party during her tour of the Western Region.
Addressing how the free SHS promises made in the party’s 2020 “People Manifesto” is going to be fulfilled, Prof Opoku Agyemang said the NDC has a strategic plan and once the party is given the nod come December 7, it will be implemented in a more efficient manner than has been done by the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
According to her, although the NPP has introduced the Free SHS programme, the policy implementation quite complete and free as some financial outlay still falls back on parents.
In view of that, she promised that the NDC will embark on a progressive implementation policy which will ensure that the programme is completely free.
To help with the efficiency of the programme’s implementation, Prof Jane referred to the data available on the total number of students moving from the Junior High School level (JHS) to the Senior High School (SHS).
This, she said would help to adequately prepare Senior High Schools to establish the needed protocols that will accommodate new students admitted to the programme.
Although she admitted that challenges in the implementation of such policies are to be expected, she still believes that the NPP could have avoided the double-track system which she claims, is derailing the quality of education in the country’s Senior High Schools.
“The current situation should tell Ghanaians that the NPP had no plans for Free SHS,” she said.
She added that the NDC’s progressively free education is targeting the brilliant but needy pupil and poor families to eradicate the burden of illiteracy caused by poverty in the country.
