Government must accept Free SHS funding challenges – IFEST
The Executive Director of the Institute for Education Services (IFEST), Dr Peter Anti says that until the government recognises the problem with the funding of the free SHS programme, no progress can be made in addressing the issue.
According to him, Ghanaians can voice their concerns about the issues of the Free SHS programme but they do not have the power to enact the necessary changes.
This comes on the back of Accra Academy’s power disconnection over a GHS480,000 debt owed to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) since July 2023.
Speaking to the media in Accra he stated that, the government should have anticipated an increase in enrollment when the free SHS program was introduced.
“While we were doing double track, we should have made a conscious effort to improve the infrastructure in our schools. Now we don’t know what is happening, we decided to go and do other kinds of projects within the same education sector,” he said.
Dr. Anti believes that the leaders of Ghana’s educational system need to take responsibility for the challenges facing the system and work to find solutions.
“They hold the answer to the challenges that we are facing and till they accept that it is a challenge, we are going to continue with the talking and interaction and the complaints. I know schools where parents are contributing money to go and pay for pre-paid. I know schools where parents are contributing money to tile the dormitories because the dormitories look like an untarred road,” he said.
“I know schools where parents are contributing money to buy beds. Why should it be so? Because the money that we should use to continue to provide these things for the school are not coming.”
The Executive director of IFEST, argues that relying solely on government funding for free SHS is not a sustainable solution.
He added that secondary schools need additional sources of funding beyond what the government can provide.
“For me, I don’t care where it is coming from but so far as it’s going to support the implementation of a policy that enable my children to attend secondary school for free, I think that we need to pursue that particular tangent,” he said.
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